Transit changes occurred too quickly: survey
City to work with Council for Persons with Disabilities to improve communication
When Jason King takes the city bus with his guide dog Zawn, both man and dog must know the route well.
That gets tricky when all the routes change, as they did recently. On June 28, the city implemented a complete overhaul of transit routes for better safety in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of routes was reduced from 17 to nine, and not all of them radiate from the main Simcoe Street transit station anymore. The idea is to allow transfers at various locations throughout the city in order to reduce crowding at the terminal.
Many riders have since told city council the changes are confusing and sometimes make transit inaccessible: that’s because some routes now use makeshift bus stops where it is not safe for wheelchair ramps to be deployed, for instance.
For King — who is completely blind and depends entirely on transit to get around the city — the changes mean getting guide dog Zawn accustomed to the new routes.
That’s possible to do, he said — but the sooner the details are offered to him, the easier it becomes.
“Sometimes it’s just about details — we (transit users) may not have enough details,” he said.
King is the program and sustainability co-ordinator for the Council for Persons with Disabilities (CPD), which circulated a survey in August to gauge the accessibility of the revamped transit system.
On Wednesday at a news conference at the Venture Noth building downtown, CPD executive director John McNutt announced that 211 people had filled out the survey.
One key finding, said CDC chair Leslie Yee — who also has a guide dog — is that riders with accessibility issues felt the transit changes occurred too quickly to keep up.
It takes time to allow a guide dog to learn a new transit route, she said, and riders such as she and King needed prompt communication in formats such as Braille.
But on Wednesday Yee said CPD has spoken about this with city transit officials and will work together in the future to ensure that communication is swift and useful.
“We’re very pleased that transit (officials) have been very open to our concerns,” she said.
Laurie Stratton, the city ’s transit manager, said the changes were made to the bus routes to ensure transit is as safe as possible in a pandemic.
But she said Wednesday that now the city will partner with CPD and develop ways to ensure those customers with accessibility issues don’t ever feel left behind.
“That communication is key,” she said. “It’s about tactical communication.”