Stephen Rees's blog

CBC

Calling Vancouver “the most accessible city in North America” is not only unproven, it also sends the message that nothing more need be done – which is obviously not true. And this quite substantial critique for people who have to cope with what has not been done, or been done badly, demonstrates that the City of Vancouver has a long way to go. As does every other municipality.

And it also affects transit. This is Margaret Birrell of the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities talking about the Canada Line

“There are 19 things wrong with the design of the stations for the blind the visually impaired alone — and they are going to rectify that — but why wasn’t that thought about before? Why didn’t they hire a specialist in design?”

Or just talk to the people who have been working steadily to make SkyTrain accessible for the last twenty years.

The fact that we might be a bit better than Seattle or Kelowna is irrelavant. Accessibility is one of those thing that  is either there or not – and it is very specific and needs a strong commitment with leadership from the top. It is not enough that Sam says “I just set policy”. He has a responsibility to ensure that policies are implemented effectively – not just taking credit for the things that seem to work better here than elsewhere.