Ombudsman investigates safety corridors
The city ombudsman has launched an investigation into the corridors sanitaires installed here and there all over town, on the basis they may not be fully accessible to the disabled.
Meantime, city opposition is fighting everything the administration is doing, while – as usual – not suggesting anything useful itself.
No mayor would choose to have a pandemic bust out during their term in office. But just as the opposition second-in-command says here, “It’s quite abnormal that this administration is putting everything on the back of COVID to be able to do some ideological changes and dogmatic changes simply to fight cars” – it’s even more abnormal that the opposition is using its golden idol, the car, to fight measures that are simply meant to make the city safer and more livable over a summer the like of which we’ve never seen.
Ensemble may see a clever maneuver in caressing the feelings of people still mentally living in the 20th century, but if there’s a moral to the pandemic, it’s that change comes whether you want it to or not.
Ephraim 07:41 on 2020-06-06 Permalink
The accessibility of the city for the disabled has plummeted since this happened. No one is giving any thought to this at all. For example, a handicapped spot needs to be created on the cross street, near the corner, when you take away all parking on a main street, otherwise, the entire street becomes inaccessible to many of the handicapped. Not just those in wheelchairs, but also those with limited distance mobility.
Kate 10:35 on 2020-06-06 Permalink
I can see that, Ephraim, but the measures are temporary. I may get shouted down for this, but I can’t grasp the theory that because they inconvenience a minority of disabled people, that nobody should have them.
Alison Cummins 11:01 on 2020-06-06 Permalink
Kate,
Why can’t the temporary measures include creating temporary disabled parking spots on cross streets?
DeWolf 11:36 on 2020-06-06 Permalink
The corridors sanitaires were put up ad hoc when the epidemic was at its worst. Shops only reopened a week ago. Why do so many people assume those plastic bollards and metal fences are permanent and cannot possibly be rearranged?
Kate 12:09 on 2020-06-06 Permalink
Alison, they might. This is all being improvised on the fly and will undoubtedly be rearranged over time and improved if it has to be kept in place after the summer.
Ephraim 15:44 on 2020-06-06 Permalink
Kate, that means that the handicapped are going to have to go further to get their needs met. So instead of going to Rachelle-Bery on St-Denis, they will have to go to the suburbs, where there is parking. Think of all the little needs that you have and limit yourself to walking 50m or less, if possible each time. Pretty difficult. Someone should have been in there and said, okay, can we do something to make this essential business more accessible to the handicapped.
Kate 15:54 on 2020-06-06 Permalink
Ephraim, now it’s being discussed, so I hope for your sake and all the others’ that it can get fixed.
Meantime, would you prefer the city removes all the corridors sanitaires?
EmilyG 16:37 on 2020-06-06 Permalink
Disabled people are inconvenienced all the time. They’re tired of it.
The fact that most (able-bodied) people don’t realize that, and don’t realize their own privilege, is part of the ableism inherent in society