Our communities are not built for people with disabilities.
At the time much of the infrastructure for our cities and towns went in how the disabled would fare in our streets and on our sidewalks was not something that planners thought about.
Even now, we could often do better.
And there are some things that we could change if we had the will. They wouldn’t necessarily be easy, but if we truly demanded they be done, it is possible.
Take the length of our pedestrian lights, for instance.
When crossing busy intersections, we wait for the appropriate signal to let us know that we’re not going to get hit by oncoming vehicle traffic.
But as reporter Robert Barron noted during his recent Wheel-About around Duncan on a motorized scooter, and later blinded, with a white cane, the length of time allocated by our pedestrian lights for people to cross the street are inadequate for people with disabilities.
We would argue that they’re inadequate, period.
We’ve seen folks who are able-bodied struggle to reach the opposite sidewalk by the time the light changes if they aren’t moving practically at a run.
This is something that we could fix. In other places, the pedestrian lights are longer.
It would require a change to the entire integrated system of pedestrian and vehicle stop lights, including turn lights at many intersections, and it would mean that people in cars would have to wait a few seconds longer.
But we can do it.
The current inadequate lights are really a symptom of a larger expression of our societal values.
We value the automobile above all else. Other places with longer pedestrian lights place more value on people travelling on foot.
In some large cities in Europe, for example, urban cores have been developed specifically to be much more pedestrian friendly. People still drive cars, of course, but they are not the be-all and end-all.
Walkers are routinely seen walking down the middle of streets until a vehicle comes up behind, then they move over to share the roadway. Pedestrians are afforded just as much right to the largest part of many roads as vehicles are.
This is non-existent in Canada. Imagine walking down the middle of a street in Vancouver or Toronto. Or even Duncan. Vehicles reign supreme, and pedestrians are crowded onto sometimes paved strips on the edge of thoroughfares, always.
We don’t give people the space and the time to walk.
It’s past time that we start shifting out thinking. There is another way to look at building.
