Getting around isn’t easy for the disabled

People with mobility issues have to deal with stairs, lack of accessible bathrooms

I tend to speak my mind. I tell people on the bus to remove their backpacks and to give their seat up for elderly people or pregnant women. I scowl at people who enter the subway before letting others disembark, and those who have conversations at the top of the escalator or in the middle of the hallway.

I prefer to take public transit because I get really frustrated in traffic. Just driving to the train station has been an exercise in patience this summer. In order to get home I need to make a detour, which changes almost daily without warning. To go one block east I need to take a route through two parking lots and two sets of lights, which can take 10 minutes. I am looking forward to winter because it means the end of construction.

It would probably be better for my mood and blood pressure if I could just laugh and let things slide, but it doesn’t always work, especially if I am late or have had a long day.

So I have enormous respect and sympathy for people who face real daily challenges getting around. Who can’t just hop in a car, get on a bus or take the train or metro.

You may not realize it, but there are tens of thousands of people with mobility issues on the West Island alone. Looking at some 2011 data, I counted more than 2,000 each in Beaconsfield, Dorval and Kirkland, about 5,600 in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, and 3,500 in Pointe-Claire — well over 15,000 in just five municipalities.

Working in a hospital, I see some of these people every day. Just getting to the hospital must be a challenge, often involving special adapted transport. While the tunnel leading to the hospital from the train and metro has an elevator, there is no way for people to get up the stairs from the metro. They can’t go down the steep stairs from the train platform to the tunnel either, but I think this is a moot point, as in 12 years I have never seen a wheelchair on the train.

The new light-railway system coming in 2020 is supposed to offer universal access, but if those in a wheelchair can’t disembark at the other end, that is only half a solution.

People with physical disabilities have enough challenges — think of bathrooms located at the bottom of stairs or those barely large enough for a stick person to turn around in. Imagine having to reserve adapted transport if you want to go anywhere and being prepared to go and return at specific times, and to wait if the driver is late.

When in Barcelona this summer, I noticed that almost all the metro stations were accessible by elevator. In fact, 129 out of 156 stations are accessible. In Montreal, we have nine out of 69, which is great if you compare it to nine out of 303 in Paris, but still not so wonderful for Montrealers in wheelchairs who want to get around like everyone else.

I think we can do better.