As the Jan. 1 deadline for province-wide compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act approaches, disability rights advocates are once again calling attention to a TTC offering called “Family of Services,” which they say needs to be reworked or scrapped all together.
As it stands, people with disabilities who use the paratransit service Wheel-Trans are transported door-to-door for the price of a subway ride.
Family of Services refers to a package of transportation services that includes both Wheel-Trans as well as conventional transit.
“It sounds very cuddly and nice – ‘family’ and all that – but it’s nothing like that. It’s actually cold and bureaucratic and riddled with barriers,” said David Lepofsky, chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance.
“It would enable the TTC to tell you, ‘well, we’re not going to take you door-to-door. We’re going to take you partway and drop you on at a subway station, and then we expect you to take the conventional system the rest of the way or part of the rest of the way, and then we will pick you up with another Wheel-Trans vehicle.”
The concept was introduced in the integrated accessibility standard enacted in 2011, under the subheading “origin to destination services.”
While mandating that “every specialized transportation service provider shall provide origin to destination services within its service area,” it says that “origin to destination services may include services on any accessible conventional transportation services.”
It further adds that “origin to destination services refers to the overall package of transportation services that allows a specialized transportation service provider to provide, in a flexible way, transportation services in a manner that best meets the needs of persons with disabilities. “
Lepofsky said while it may sound logical in theory, it is neither practical or equitable, especially in a transit system that is not fully accessible yet.
“The problem with it is it makes your ride longer than it would be if you’re door-to-door, it can be replete with delays. The WheelTrans vehicle might take you to a subway, and then you get on the subway and the subway breaks down. Or an elevator that’s supposed to be working isn’t working, which too often happens,” he expalined.
“I’ve been told by people working at the TTC that you could end up with one Wheel-Trans vehicle picking you up at home, taking you to a subway, and then racing to the other part of your subway ride to pick you up in the same vehicle. What a complete waste.”
“I have yet to meet a person with a disability who tells me that they enjoy or want to use a Family of Service offering,” added founder of Access Now, Maayan Ziv.
“It takes longer than your conventional transit experience would. And that in itself can obviously take time and everybody knows that. So I don’t know why this design solution is the one that they felt was the right one. To me, it looks like a cost savings measure and not a intuitive solution that has been authentically designed by and with disabled people. It’s hard for me to see in what case a disabled person would opt for that.”
Another aspect of the legislation which Ziv points out as troubling is the requirement that transit authorities reassess disabled people for use of paratransit services and then place them into categories — giving them unconditional, conditional or temporary eligibility for Wheel-Trans.
“I had to basically resubmit my eligibility for Wheel-Trans [last year]. And whereas I used to be kind of unlimited access door-to-door, I’ve now been downgraded to conditional access, which means that outside the hours of rush hour, I’m supposed to be using Family of Services. At the current time Wheel-Trans has not mandated that, they haven’t forced me into that system, but at any time that they choose to, they can,” she said.
“The bureaucratic process for deciding which of their passengers are going to be subjected to this places the TTC in the role of deciding whether it can assess the scope of individuals’ disabilities. And it’s certainly not their expertise. They run a mass transit system,” added Lepofsky.
In a statement to CityNews, TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said Family of Services is not being forced on anyone that does not want to use it.
“Family of Services is not mandatory and there are currently no plans to make it mandatory — as has been discussed at the Board. Any change would only come following robust public consultation and approval by the TTC Board,” he said.
However, both Ziv and Lepofsky remain unconvinced.
“I mean, we’ve seen many times where public consultations are folks going to an accessibility committee, presenting their case — just so that they say they consulted and then doing whatever they want. I’m not saying that that’s what would happen here, but I’ve seen it happen,” said Ziv.
“We just had the Ontario government say they consulted with us people with disabilities on a billion dollar courthouse, and they ended up building a billion dollar courthouse that’s replete with disability barriers that we warned them about. So telling us you’re going to consult doesn’t get us anywhere,” said Lepofsky.
As the root of the concerns lie with the provincial legislation that might allow Family of Services to be imposed, CityNews reached out to the office of the minister of seniors and accessibility, Raymond Cho, regarding strong opposition to it from the disabled community. They twice refused to comment, saying it’s a local transit issue and referred us back to the TTC.
The TTC repeatedly stressed that current Wheel-Trans customers will not see any changes to the services they receive, but advocates say that as long as the legislation stays in place, they don’t feel safe.
“We are very fearful that despite the TTC sometimes claiming they’re not going to impose [Family of Services], that they will. And the problem is under Ontario law, they can,” said Lepofsky.
“We don’t have any assurance that they’re not going to change their mind and then point to the regulations that were supposed to be enacted to expand our rights, but which are being used to actually undermine our rights.”
Lepofsky says the AODA Alliance fought hard against the legislation back in 2011 but they were unable to prevent it from getting on the books.
“We’ve been asking since then for them to repeal it but the government’s not listening,” he says.
“This is just another illustration of the kind of fragile world in which we people with disabilities too often have to live.”