COULD THE WEST ISLAND BECOME A SENIORS’ PARADISE?

So, what are we doing about our aging population, and, yes, I reluctantly include myself?

How could we improve the West Island as a region for successful senior living? Where are the public policies which will make it possible for seniors to live comfortably and well in our area?

Is anyone co-ordinating new initiatives?

It isn’t just big gestures: it’s often a question of detail.

It isn’t very encouraging to hear stories from West Island neighbourhoods which oppose the development of senior housing. How will our seniors be able to stay on the West Island if there isn’t appropriate housing?

And I have heard people say that the West Island could be a paradise for seniors.

Take mobility, for instance. One of the keys to successful senior living is smooth mobility. If you’re still moving, you know you’re alive. You have to be able to get around. Losing your driving licence, for example, can be a huge blow for a senior: and keeping and using it can be a calamity for everyone else. If you’re lucky you’ll know when it’s time to stop driving.

One Gazette reader sent me a couple of observations which give an idea of mobility problems. Who is paying attention to these types of irritants?

Marianne Stenbaek, a McGill University professor who has lived on the West Island for nearly 50 years, still teaches university classes downtown and occasionally visits the Arctic in her capacity as Inuit specialist. She is a very active ‘senior.’ She can get around in the Arctic: but she’s not able to negotiate the SteAnne-de-Bellevue train station.

It’s too difficult to take the train. She doesn’t complain about getting to the station, but when she gets there under the bridge in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue she has to climb 64 concrete steps to get to the platform up above. She’s counted them: 64. In winter they are often icy and you know the story about seniors falling on ice.

Even worse than this calvary of a train station is the fact that she can’t get off the train on the return journey. The platform ‘seems to have settled’ so the distance from the train’s last step to the platform is just too far and risky for an elderly passenger. She’s paralyzed by the challenge.

She has complained about this difficulty to conductors but they claim that management just doesn’t care about it. Which may just mean that conductors don’t care about it. Maybe, she suggests, the conductor could have a portable final step he could put down for elderly passengers? But what if the senior slips off the step? Who’s going to take responsibility for that? And where would the conductor leave the step until an elderly passenger needed it? It might get stolen. That’s just two trivial details that make the train unusable for a vigorous senior.

Stenbaek has another beef about obstacles to her mobility. She can’t deal with the speed and arrogance of the cyclists who fly through Ste-Anne in the warm seasons, disregarding all the traffic signs. They can be dangerous and annoying. “It’s not a velodrome,” Stenbaek said. “Something needs to be done to stop them or slow them down before an accident happens.”

Two minor irritants. Solve them and you have an active senior taking the train and crossing summer roads through streams of cyclists. One more senior resident who is able to live successfully and independently in our West Island. But who is listening to complaints like these? What kinds of services are available to seniors in our community? What kind of ‘network’ do we have? What kind of network do we need? As our senior population grows, just how easy is it to live independently? What kind of help can we get and from where?

Some of our cities, like PointeClaire, are really well-equipped for seniors. Not quite the same in my town. Sainte-Anne-deBellevue’s town councils used to discuss the needs of our seniors, but generally we treated seniors like people who would take advantage of us. We opted not to assist seniors to clear their snow because the town is so difficult to manoeuvre through and there are so many old people, or at least that is what the directorgeneral managed to convince our majority. Likewise, the town used to give out bus tickets but stopped when we were shown that some of our seniors were selling them to third parties.

Then on holiday I saw at the entrance to a town, a revolutionary sign: SLOW DOWN WE LOVE OUR SENIORS. A town that loves its seniors! A town which proclaims its love of its seniors.

Now can we say that in the West Island?

She is a very active ‘senior.’ She can get around in the Arctic: but she’s not able to negotiate the Ste-Annede-Bellevue train station.