So welcome back, everyone, to an unwanted or wanted sequel, like popular Disney movies, about the other problems that disabled people face on a daily basis, from red bathroom cords to service dog distractions. If this is your first time here, I recommend checking out my first accessibility blog post here: https://celoptra.wordpress.com/2024/08/31/breaking-barriers-the-inaccessibility-faced-by-the-disabled-community/. So let’s just hop into it, shall we?

Red Bathroom Cord

So in Europe, at least, and maybe in at least some hospitals in North America, disabled bathrooms (not stalls, just disabled bathrooms) have this long red cord that dangles to the floor. The purpose of this cord is that if someone falls in the bathroom and is on the floor, they can pull the cord to access help.

Now, let’s talk about the aspect of inaccessibility in the problem. The issue with the bathroom red cords is that often managers or janitors will either tie them up or cut them, thinking that they are obstructing the way. As a result, the cords become either useless if they are cut or cannot be reached from the floor in case of a fall, causing serious harm to people who might not be able to call for help in any other way.

Expensive accessible items

So the next topic we’re discussing is the fact that accessible items are often more expensive than their normal counterparts, if there are any non-accessible counterparts. There are only two accessible items I know of that have non-accessible normal alternatives. One of them is Braille games—both card games like Playing Cards or Uno, and Braille board games like Monopoly, where the street names are in Braille, the Monopoly money has Braille (unlike American money), and the Monopoly property cards are twice as big as the standard Monopoly property cards. The other non-game accessible version is a picnic or cafeteria table where a wheelchair user can join non-wheelchair friends at the same table and be part of the conversation. With the normal setup, they have to eat by themselves or be stuck at the end of a table, like the ones in the background of the topic picture. There are other versions of accessible items , such as ramps, stair lifts, or house elevators , that don’t have normal alternatives besides something as simple as “walking up the stairs.”

Why is this an accessibility issue? Because regardless of whether they have a normal alternative or not, the accessible items are generally more expensive than their regular counterparts. As we will be discussing in later topics, disabled people don’t even have money for fun or to obtain accessible housing without needing to spend over $1,000 on renovations. The reason for the expensive price of these accessible items is due to the fact that companies believe there is less demand for them because “not a lot of people need them” compared to the normal versions, which means less stock of them. This is sometimes jokingly called a “disability tax.”

Traffic Light Countdowns and Sidewalk Construction

This section will be about major accessibility barriers. It was only going to cover two topics, but I found more sidewalk barriers to discuss, as well as construction signs. The topics include traffic countdowns, construction barriers, and other sidewalk barriers.

Traffic Countdowns

Have you ever just not been able to make it to the other side of the crosswalk? If you can barely make it to the other side, think about how difficult it might be for someone who is a slower walker or uses a mobility device.

On a main street in my hometown, there’s a crosswalk that is near an apartment complex. Most of the people in that complex are seniors—they are mobile enough to live independently without much help. But some of them use walkers or mobility scooters. This crosswalk countdown doesn’t give you much time to cross. If I can barely make it across, how can any of the seniors make it across if they’re using walkers or mobility scooters? It makes me even more mad when I know that in a very large area, more than three blocks, the cross countdowns there have a much longer time period than the one near this senior complex.

Another problem with traffic countdowns is the fact that when a two-lane street turns into a six-lane street, the towns do not bother to update the countdown system. This happened in a friend’s town and in another town where I occasionally go to the mall. In the first town, when I’m helping my friend get to a hairdresser somewhere, she and my other friend are only halfway through the crosswalk when the countdown is happening. In the second town, you basically have to run across the street because there is not enough time to walk at a normal speed to get across.

Sidewalk Barriers

There are several types of sidewalk barriers that pose a problem for many people. The first issue is infuriating when I come across a one-sided street with construction taking place on that sidewalk. They often have a sign stating “Sidewalk closed, use other sidewalk,” but there is no alternative sidewalk on a one-sided street. In such situations, pedestrians are forced to walk on the road, and individuals using mobility devices have to navigate the road in their wheelchairs. This poses a danger to both pedestrians and drivers.

The second accessibility issue is when cars or vans are parked on the sidewalk portion of their own “driveway.” Someone who can walk can easily go up, down, and around it, but someone in a wheelchair is then forced to go out into the road to get around it.

The third inaccessibility issue is when e-bikes are basically left all over the place and not parked properly, either next to a wall or at a station. This makes it difficult for people with mobility devices, especially if they’re at the curb cut, as they have to go back and enter the road to get to places.

The fourth issue with sidewalk barriers is a significant one. When construction is carried out on a sidewalk and nearing completion, poles, posts, or other objects are often placed in the middle of the sidewalk. In my town, there is a street where a stop sign is located right in the middle of a sidewalk, on the other side of a curb-cut. This situation could potentially result in significant harm for someone who is distracted, and it could cause a wheelchair user to fall out of their chair if they run into it. As of December 11th, in the Toronto Star, there was a column about a fire hydrant being in the middle of the sidewalk, and the city’s claim is, “it couldn’t be placed anywhere else,” yet it literally is against the AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act).

The last two accessibility issues are centered around recycling and trash. A major problem I found is when I’m out with my friend who is pushing a bundle buggy, and the recycling truck has come and gone, and the recycling bins are just thrown into the middle of the sidewalk, blocking the pathway for someone who can walk or someone accompanying a person in a mobility device or other wheeled mode. They have to move the recycling or compost bins out of the way. But what if a person is on their own in a wheelchair or mobility device? It means that they probably have to go into the road because they can’t move it. The other issue here is the fact that in cities like Toronto, if the trash bin is broken in some way or another, there are a multitude of problems. Trash does not go into the bins in the first place, so that itself is an accessibility barrier. Additionally, there are other problems, like the trash bin doors being open and creating an obstacle for mobility device users.

A fifth issue regarding sidewalk barriers is when it snows after both the street and sidewalk snowplows go by. When they turn the corners, they create mountains of snow at the curbs where people need to cross. This, along with people who don’t shovel their sidewalks, causes both disabled and able-bodied individuals to walk in the streets, dealing with cars.

Elevator III

There are five additional problems to what I mentioned in Elevator Parts I and II in the previous post. The topics will be about how the Braille is not on the numbers properly, there’s no directory anywhere, you can’t hear the audio announcements on the elevator due to low volume, having to walk a bit to a secondary elevator, and having to hop onto a non-accessible car because it would take too long to get to the accessible one when you don’t have very long to hop on the train and don’t know which direction to go. The first and third topics will reference a video the AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) Alliance did, a group of disability advocates who test supposedly “accessible” places.

According to the ADOA Alliance video from last August, David Lepofsky has found several accessibility problems, including issues with the elevators at this inaccessible courthouse. There are nine elevators, but only six are for public use. The first physical problem with one particular elevator is that the Braille part of the elevator information is not at the same level as the normal print level; it is slightly down and to the left.

Another issue is that for the elevator print and braille “G,” it’s fine in print, but there’s only a star symbol next to it (which tells a blind person nothing). “But in Braille, it doesn’t say ‘G’ but ‘D’—did they mean to say ‘G,’ and did anyone proofread this Braille?”

It’s great that there are audio announcements in the elevator, but it’s kind of annoying that in this one particular elevator shown in the video, you can’t really hear the voice announcements—you can barely hear it saying “2nd floor” and “Ground” in the video. This would cause a major problem if the elevator were full of people who were all chatting at once.

So something not related to the courthouse: in Toronto, there’s a building called The Tenor. When my friend and I were there in December to see Moana 2, we discovered one issue—that there’s no directory anywhere but on the main floor of the building. So if you don’t go there often, you don’t know which floor is which. Another place that has a similar problem is Toronto General Hospital; there’s no directory outside the elevators to know which doctor/clinic is on which level of the 13 floors of the hospital, and that’s annoying when you only go in once every 12 months.

So another issue with elevators is that they can take a while to fix. When I was in Toronto in April to get bloodwork done at Toronto General Hospital, my friend and I noticed the elevator on Platform 5 was being a little slow to come up. On March 14, when my friend and I went into Toronto for my annual check-up at Toronto General Hospital, the normal elevator apparently was out of order, so my friend and I had to walk a ways to the other elevator to get down to the concourse.

In addition to the above topic, another issue that has come up occasionally when my friend and I go into Toronto is the fact that additional elevators are too far away from the accessible platform on Platform 10-11. If you’re in a hurry and there are no signs, you don’t have time to run to the ramp if you’re trying to play guessing games about which way to go. My friend and I tried to go in one direction to find the accessible platform and then in the other direction, but we ended up hopping on a non-accessible car instead.

Airlines with Mobility Devices

So in September 2024, I was in Stratford, Ontario, to see a play. After the play, while waiting for the bus back to Toronto, another member of my party spoke to a woman with a mobility device who was also waiting for the bus. This woman talked about the fact that she had traveled a lot and only twice out of twenty times had the airlines ever brought her walker to her at the plane door. One time in Frankfurt, they had to get two off-duty baggage handlers to search for her walker. At Heathrow Airport in London, UK, it took two hours for them to find this woman’s walker. When she finally got to the bus for what was supposed to have been a tour of the city, the other people on the bus weren’t too happy with her, even though it wasn’t her fault.

This woman’s story highlights one of the three problems that travelers with mobility devices have with airlines. The other two are that mobility devices are either damaged when they’re returned to the traveler or forgotten at the point of departure. Wheelchairs’ tiny front wheels are frequently bent, crooked, or entirely broken due to baggage handlers mishandling them, and small repairs for wheels can be an added expense, especially in a country where you don’t speak the language.

It’s quite common for airlines to forget mobility devices at the point of departure. In 2023, this happened to Stephanie Cadieux, Canada’s chief accessibility officer. She was traveling from Pearson Airport in Toronto to Vancouver, B.C., and somehow her wheelchair was left behind at Pearson Airport. (Side note: She mentioned that her wheelchair has also been damaged frequently.) Air Canada didn’t get involved until the media spoke to them, and only then did they apologize to Cadieux. Another woman who was visiting Mexico in 2023 didn’t receive her wheelchair until November 2nd after WestJet forgot to put it on the plane on October 31st, and even when she did get it back, it was damaged. In 2022, a woman booked a direct flight across the U.S. to avoid any issues with wheelchairs, but instead, she and her group got stranded at a Florida airport because someone at American Airlines forgot to load her wheelchair onto the plane. In 2023, two wheelchair rugby players had to use their rugby wheelchairs during a layover in Houston, Texas because “United Breaks Guitars” Airlines forgot to include their standard wheelchairs on the plane. One player described how this situation reduced him to an infant, as he requires a significant amount of assistance when using the rugby wheelchair, which is not meant for everyday use.

BANKS

There are two major issues with banks: one is with the counters, and the other is something that has been an issue for me: the covers on PIN pads at the banks, which make it difficult to see the first row of numbers.

Counters II

So one of the major problems, not just here but at post offices and similar places, is that if the accessible counter isn’t available or doesn’t exist, other counters are too tall for someone small or in a wheelchair. This was the experience of Cassidy Huff more than once, making it difficult for her to sign documents and such without help from her boyfriend.

Pin Pad Covers

So a problem I have had in recent years is that my bank installed pin pad covers for the ATM pin pad and also the debit/credit card machines. This makes it really difficult to type when your PIN might include the numbers 1, 2, or 3 in the first row without needing to basically lean all the way down so your nose is against the pin pad to see those numbers or needing to learn Braille as a sighted person.

Accessible Parking Space II

Another common problem with accessible parking spaces is that, besides obstacles like shopping carts, bicycles, and motorbikes being in the buffer zone, a dumpster may also be in the buffer zone, preventing someone in a wheelchair from getting in or out of their accessible car because they can’t put the ramp down with the dumpster in the way. This is more commonly found in places where there is only one accessible parking spot (normally, but not always, behind the building), but sometimes this happens in places where there is more than one accessible parking spot.

Door Openers

Push buttons are supposed to be an accessible help, but sometimes they turn into an accessibility problem. Three examples of this are when there is no button, the button is covered up by something, or, at the new inaccessible Ontario courthouse I mentioned previously in 2023, someone got hit by the door because the door swung open on the same side as the door opener.

It’s obvious why having no push buttons is an accessibility issue. With no push button, it means someone in a wheelchair, or otherwise having their hands full, would need someone else to help them enter a place of business, or they might have to forgo going to that particular place of business if it has no push buttons

The next topic is why having the push button hidden behind something is an inaccessibility issue. It’s an inaccessibility issue because if a plant is in the way of the push button, people wouldn’t be able to see it and use it, essentially preventing access to the business. This happened to me last summer (2024) when my friend and I went to Boston Pizza, and we couldn’t find the push button until after we exited the restaurant due to the fact it had been covered up by the leaves of a plant they had outside the restaurant.

Going back to the inaccessible courthouse I mentioned in a previous topic, another problem this inaccessible courthouse had was when David Lepofsky visited the courthouse the first time in 2023. When he pushed the push button, the left-hand side door hit him because whoever designed the system didn’t think about the fact that people need room to get around the door or that they would be that close to the door. It was fixed for David Lepofsky’s 2024 visit..

Drive Thru Ban II

So I talked about the Drive-Thru ban in my last post. Due to my visits to two restaurants—the food court with Wendy’s in it and also Harvey’s (a Canadian restaurant)—I found another reason why I think that the ban on anything that’s not cars in the drive-thru is a heap of rubbish. It’s common, at least in my area, that for normal people who don’t need push buttons, when you go to a restaurant, you find that the additional doors are in the path of the drive-thru lane, and you don’t have any other way of getting around the lane to get to the doors. So because I have to walk through that drive-thru lane more than once, it makes no sense that there’s a ban preventing others from using the drive-thru window if they are not in a car.

Public Transit II

One of the several topics of inaccessibility will cover both the lack of signage and confusing signage at Toronto Union Station concourse and on GO Station platforms. The other topic will be the lack of public transit. There will also be talk about Wheel Trans and something known as “Family of Services” that I will discuss later in this section

Lack of Signage

On Sept 4th, my friend and I went into Toronto to go to Stratford to see a play, the last one for that particular season for us. My friend and I followed the crowd, and we ended up in the downstairs corridor and needed to find the washroom. It took us a while, but we found the bathroom next to a restaurant. However, there was a lack of signage—I only found one bathroom sign because I happened to be looking up and found a bathroom sign saying “<- Washroom.” When we looked in the direction the arrow was pointing, it said “Washroom” up high on the wall. This washroom would be impossible for someone blind or visually impaired to find if they were alone since there was no sign anywhere near eye level.

Confusing Signage

So the train platform my friend and I get on to come home from being in Toronto is the 10-11 platform. There’s more than once when we went up there that part of the platform signage said 10, but when we got closer to the raised platform, it said the correct platform number, and we were on the right side of the platform; the signage wasn’t. This would confuse someone terribly if they weren’t familiar with the workings of the train platforms—they would assume they were on the right platform until the train went in the wrong direction.

Lack of Public Transit

Last March (March 2024), I was in Toronto to see a concert with a friend, but getting home was a bit difficult. We had to hurry to the GO Train, so my friend and I had to put the bundle buggy and ourselves on a non-accessible car and also help another woman with her stroller get on the non-accessible car. When we got off back in our town, it was late—11 PM on Saturday night—so there were no buses. The woman with the stroller also got off in our town and wanted a bus to get someplace, as did a woman we ran into at the normal bus stop at the train station. The two women walked with us for a little while and then went to Tim Hortons so one of the women could charge her phone.

When I contacted the local public transit, they told me about an “on-demand” public transit app for when buses aren’t running. But they also told me there is a need for it to be “booked in advance” (at least the day before the trip). To me, that creates two problems.

1. How can someone book something in advance if they’re from out of town, like the two women I met in March of 2024?
2. People don’t have other options if buses aren’t running, and they don’t have access to the on-demand app, whether because they’re from out of town or because their phone is dead.

Another problem with the lack of public transit is that in the spring or summer, when I’ve gone to the Pickering Mall and I’m trying to get the eastbound bus home, the local public transit information says there should be a bus at 5 after 4 (4:05 PM). However, in reality, a bus doesn’t show up until 20 after 4 (or 4:20 PM). As a result of the lateness of the bus, I’m late getting home.

It also doesn’t help when the 4:05 PM bus is coming from another town, as accidents on the highway could cause problems getting to where I’m waiting, whereas the 4:20 PM bus comes from behind the mall since there is a bus terminal, so it doesn’t need to travel as far as the other bus to get to where I’m waiting.

Wheel Trans

Wheel Trans is a whole other ballgame in the world of accessibility. I have a lot to chow down on in this world of inaccessibility with Wheel Trans. Wheel Trans should be accessible, but get this—it’s not! Whether it’s because they cancel people’s services or the fact that it has to be booked weeks in advance. So let’s hop into it, shall we?

Booking Wheel Trans

The first inaccessible problem with Wheel Trans is that it’s not like normal transit, which pulls up to a bus stop to pick up people—it’s a service you have to book weeks and sometimes months in advance. In some places, Wheel Trans doesn’t even run on the weekends, so if you need help getting places, you’re not going to be able to go out on the weekends. Also, for at least the first trip, you have to provide proof of your disability and how you can’t use normal public transit (which is a bit of a laugh considering one of the following topics with this). Now, under new TTC rules, some of these people have to reapply for their “proof of disabilities.” Under the new rules, there are going to be three categories: Temporary, Unconditional, and Conditional. It’s like they think disabilities can suddenly disappear?

Wheel Trans cancelling services

Before Covid, there were a lot of stories about disabled people who had used Wheel-Trans for a long time not being able to use it because, out of the blue, someone at the top of the food chain decided that these disabled people “didn’t deserve” Wheel-Trans and could probably use normal transit. One case I remember seeing was about either a teen or someone in their young adult years (18-20). Yet that one woman had been using the service for several years to be able to go out with friends during the weekdays, and then, because of these decisions, couldn’t go out anymore.

Family of Services

Family of Services means that the transportation will be a merge of both Wheel-Trans and the “conventional public transit” services. But there’s a problem: the people at the top of the food chain don’t realize how inaccessible some stations are, not just because of the hoops they have to go through if the elevator is down at a station, but also because the gap at some stations between the train door and the platform is a problem. In one recent case, Wheel-Trans tried to cancel a woman’s door-to-door Wheel-Trans service because they declared that she could “use conventional public transit.” The woman mentioned to the Toronto Star that back when she was using normal public transit, one time her wheelchair wheels got stuck between the gap, and the only way she got over it was with two guys helping her over it.

When I was trying to look up this topic, I found out that someone had an issue with “Family of Services” because the 70-year-old woman wanted to visit her 90-year-old mom in a home. Because the normal door-to-door Wheel-Trans was booked solid, she had to settle for “Family of Services” and ended up with sore knees due to, in places, a long walk between subway stations and standing for long periods of time. That’s not counting the other issue that the Wheel-Trans service took her to either the wrong subway station, which was in the opposite direction of where she was going, and what should have been 10 minutes with door-to-door service was more than an hour and a half. Going back home was even longer—two and a half hours!

Another Wheel-Trans user, who uses an electric wheelchair, has more than once canceled his trip because of rain, which could short-circuit his wheelchair. This means he can’t use the Family of Services like the TTC wants him to use. Also, the booking system doesn’t seem to have a condition for “rain” and tells him to call the Priority Line on the day of his appointments to see if there are any rides, which there normally aren’t, so he has to cancel the appointment.

It’s not just wheelchair users or people with limited mobility who are having issues with Wheel-Trans; it’s an issue for blind and visually impaired people as well. There’s one story where a blind person waited for Wheel-Trans to come and pick her up, and when it appeared, Wheel-Trans didn’t pick her up. She called the Priority Line and was told that Wheel-Trans had come and left without ever informing her they were there. She’s not alone in this problem. Another issue with the Family of Services for the visually impaired is that they can’t manage steps without help in an unfamiliar environment or if the stairs are under construction.

According to the blind lawyer David Lepofsky, he has heard of several cases where disabled people who were forced to use “Family of Services” either found out or figured out that the Wheel-Trans vehicle that picked them up from their destination subway station is the same vehicle that dropped them off at the other subway station. So what a waste of time—even the drivers think this when they’re the same ones picking up and dropping off people for Family of Services. If this is supposed to be about efficiency, wouldn’t it make more sense to keep them on the bus?

Lack of Money for Fun

Disabled people barely have money for basic necessities like food, a roof over their heads, or medication. Because their income, either through disability programs like ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program) or through work, isn’t enough to live on, they can’t save money for enjoyable activities like going to see a movie, experiencing live theatre, visiting a theme park, or traveling the world without needing to be a social media creator or having someone “take pity” on them and take them to these events.

Some people think that a Disney+ account is cheap, but for someone on disability income, it’s not affordable. In Canada, the “standard” plan with ads on Disney+ is $8.99/month, so that multiplied by 12 months is $107.88/year. In contrast, an actual movie theater experience (not counting snacks)—let’s say a person goes to 3 movies a year—costs $15 x 3 = $45.00/year. That makes a movie experience cheaper for a lot of people, not even counting the possibility of rebates that disabled people might be able to get through attending events like live theater and then claiming money through an additional service provider.

Inaccessible Affordable Housing

This is a topic that is really personal and deep for people with disabilities. Since most of them don’t have money for a place to renovate after moving in, if they’re lucky enough to find an affordable place to live, they discover the hard truth that something in their new home is inaccessible—like a kitchen being a galley kitchen, which is too small for a wheelchair to fit in to be able to make supper, or that they can’t get to the sink in the kitchen or bathroom because of the design, either due to a cabinet being underneath the sink or because the galley kitchen means that when the fridge is opened in the kitchen, it touches the stove.

Since most disabled people don’t have the money to renovate, it makes it impossible for them to fix the issues—if the issues can be fixed; some can’t be. If they’re renting, that makes it even worse since, in some cases, renters aren’t allowed to change anything in the place they’re renting.

Service Dog Distractions

There are four types of distractions for service dogs: petting the dog, calling the dog’s name, children trying to bother the dog, and fake service dogs. I already covered fake service dogs in the previous blog post.

The reason these four distractions are a problem for service dogs is that if the dog is petted or called by people who aren’t their handler or their handler’s family, it means they wouldn’t be able to focus and do their job with their handler, who is their entire focus. This could cause the handler real harm and even a trip to the hospital because the dog’s focus was elsewhere. Some of these distractions are so severe that some handlers even give out fake names for their service dogs.

In 2018, one service dog handler in New Brunswick, Canada, had to start slapping people’s hands away on the bus when they tried to pet her service dog. People thought the handler was crazy; it’s like these people “had never seen a dog before,” as the handler puts it.

In late September of last year in Victoria, B.C., there was a case that showed why service dogs should be left alone. At a mall during a training session with a seizure alert dog and a new client, the new client had a seizure in the corridors. When the service dog was doing “pressure therapy,” as it was supposed to do, a member of the public tried to engage with the dog, telling it it was a “good boy” and attempting to pet the dog. It wasn’t until the head of the organization training service dogs was brought in that the member of the public was forced to leave the dog alone.

In 2015, Hailey, a handler, was training a service dog, Flynn, to alert her to seizures. But when the team went to visit Hailey’s dad, another human started petting Flynn, which meant he was distracted. As a result, Hailey had a seizure and suffered a serious rug burn on her head from falling down because she didn’t have time to find a safe place to fall since the dog didn’t alert her.

So please, folks, if you see a service dog in public, leave it alone, or at least teach your children, “Sorry, you can’t go over there; the dog’s working.” Or children, tell your parents that the service dog is working.

If You Need Someone to Access, Operate or Enter It is Not Accessible.

So on April 17th,2025 I had the fun experience of getting trapped in a public washroom. At the local grocery store, there’s a public washroom; previously, you could just enter it whenever you needed to use it—but now there’s a sign on the door saying you need to ask a staff member for a key. I was able to use it, but when I went to leave the washroom, the door opened only enough for me to poke my hand out a bit and yell for someone to help, which, coincidentally, is part of this particular topic.

Another example in Los Angeles, California, is an expensive gym that she and her boyfriend go to, and until recently, every time Molly Burke went, she needed her boyfriend’s help in starting and stopping the treadmill. They changed that recently, and now the treadmill is accessible for Molly because the treadmills now have tactile buttons.

In early April, I was in Toronto to see a concert. My friend had a bundle buggy like we normally do, but we hadn’t done so for the last two trips into Toronto. We were at Roy Thomson Hall. It turns out the escalators in the basement of Roy Thomson Hall don’t direct downwards after a concert, so we had some help getting the elevator (calling for the elevator required using an intercom), which was only big enough for my friend, myself, and the bundle buggy. A wheelchair wouldn’t have fit in there, and when we were in there, we had trouble figuring out how to operate it, so we had to call for help again. They told us to press two buttons together to make the elevator move down.

In Toronto, there’s a subway station where you can transfer to the other line; it’s called Spadina Station. There are two accessibility issues: one that has been there since 2005 and one that’s more recent. We will tackle the first one, then move on to the next one.

From Spadina station being created in the 1970s until around 2005, there were these huge long moving sidewalk escalators (like the ones you see at the airport) that went from one end to the other end of the subway station. In 2005, the moving sidewalk was removed due to at least one of three issues: the salt making the sidewalk corrode the escalator, a slight problem with the grade of the escalator, or the fact that children were supposedly “riding” the handrail—whatever the case, it was removed. So it takes two to three times as long on foot to get from one end to the other, regardless of the direction you’re going.

Another accessibility issue at this station is that, because they’re trying to add elevators to Spadina station, not only have they blocked off the normal escalators at the entrances, but they have also blocked so much of the stairs that there’s only one set of stairs that is about 95 cm wide or 30 cm wide, and it’s only enough for people to go up or down depending on the direction they’re going. Since there’s no room for someone to pass by you on the stairs, it means if you are at the top wanting to go down, you have to wait for the crowd to clear before you can go down. There was only enough room for my friend to bump the bundle buggy down, but it was really annoying having to wait for stragglers to come up because I was just about to go down when two people appeared at the bottom, and I basically yelled at them to hurry up because they were being really slow. My friend and I are lucky to be able to use our feet to get up and down, but what if someone who used a walker showed up or something?

Another final example is if someone is going to have an operation, but the hospital or center doing the operation doesn’t call you until the day before your operation. How are you supposed to arrange for someone when you need to book “a service” anywhere from two weeks to two months in advance, especially if you might not have anyone nearby to help you?

Needing an additional person to access, enter, or operate an elevator, building, or whatever means two ways of being inaccessible for disabled people, and I’m going to address both issues before I continue to the next topic.

In the first example, it basically implies that we, disabled people, shouldn’t exist in this society—inaccessibility → disabled people unable to participate → disabled people not visible in public → disabled people seen as outliers/rarities. So there’s little to no need to consider them, and we are back at the start of the circle—inaccessibility. On April 23rd, the FB page Misa on Wheels has a chart about this inaccessibility borrowed from another website.

The 2nd and also final reason is one topic. The pictures at the top of this post show a sign saying, “Wheelchair ramp is available; please ask at the desk,” which basically assumes that disabled people always have someone (read: able-bodied) with them in order for them to go and get help. How is someone in a wheelchair supposed to get to the desk of the business without the need for the ramp in the first place?The 2nd and also final reason is one of the pictures at the top of this topic shows a sign saying “wheelchair ramp is avaible please ask at the desk” that basically assumes that disabled people always have someone (read: able-bodied) with them in order for them to go and get help-like how is someone in a wheelchair suppose to get to the desk of the business without the need for the ramp in the first place?

Theatres/Concerts being inaccessible

In this topic, I’m going to talk about four things specifically. Those topics are basically that wheelchair users have to, most of the time (but not all the time), book seats in the orchestra level, which is double the expense of the cheap seats in the balcony at a theatre, or they’re off to the side at a concert (and pay more). The last mobility device topic is the accessible seats in movie theatres. The other topic we will discuss is how Deaf people aren’t getting good access to shows they might want to see.

Theatres

From my experience in going to live theatre, I have found that the cheap seats are in the balconies as opposed to the orchestra level, which is more expensive. All but two of Toronto’s theatres are accessible; the two that aren’t are the Royal Alexandra Theatre and C.A.A. Ed Mirvish Theatre (not to be confused with the nearby “off-Mirvish” C.A.A. Theatre). The former has stairs all over the place with no elevators at all, so that if someone with a mobility device wanted to check their coats at the coat check in the basement, they would have to ask a theatre employee or their companion, if they had one with them, to do that. I saw SIX the Musical with my friend the other year when it was on in Toronto, and my friend, who I was with, had to bump her bundle buggy up and down the stairs to and from the coat check before and after the show. At the C.A.A. Ed Mirvish Theatre you can get a lift from the “accessible” door (read: backdoor) to the orchestra level but you must hope you’re able to climb several stairs to get to the first of the balcony levels. If you use a mobility device but still wanted to see musical like Six the Musical at Royal Alexandria Theatre or want to see Peter Pan at CAA Ed Mirvish theatre you have to spend more money for a seat in the orchestra level because you don’t have another option.

Concerts

Last summer, disability content creator Spencer West went to see Pink’s Summer Carnival in concert at the Rogers Centre/Sky Dome. Since he uses a wheelchair, he decided to try the “accessible” seats of the venue. He normally doesn’t do that when he gets to go to a concert. What he found is that despite the fact there are elevators and ramps to get to the accessible seats, the accessible seats are not really accessible; he and his friend, who he was with, were basically at the far edge of the venue and couldn’t see anything happening at the concert without the help of the gigantic video screens Pink had up, or if he zoomed in with his phone. What’s even worse about this? These “accessible” seats are double the cost of normal concert seats.

Movie Theatres

In most movie theatres, the accessible seats are not really accessible. Due to the closeness of the screen to these accessible seats, it means people who are in them have to tip their heads back for the entire duration of the movie. This is what happened to my friend and me when we went to see The Grinch in 2018. My friend didn’t realize the seating plan at the movie theatre was backwards compared to how it is at other movie theatres, so we ended up sitting in accessible seating, and for the entire movie, we had to tip our heads up to watch. If it was hard on us, who are just about normal sizes, it would be more challenging for people with limited movement in their bodies or for someone who is a little person, like Cassidy Huff.

Deaf People trying to See Shows

Deaf people who try to see shows, whether it’s a concert or a play, have a lot to deal with. An interabled couple, with the wife who is deaf and the husband who isn’t, lives in Florida. They have always had issues with trying to go see shows in some form or another. I don’t know when this happened, but they went to see a concert and emailed the venue beforehand about needing an ASL interpreter. Originally, the venue said they were going to provide one, but then backed out by the time they got there and told them to either a) Google the lyrics for the song or b) have the husband sign the lyrics. Last I heard, the couple was looking to sue that venue for not providing the accessibility they promised.

This same couple also had a problem at a live theatre show they attended. They did get an ASL interpreter, but the venue placed them in seats that were blocked by a column or something, obstructing their view of the ASL interpreter. As a result, they couldn’t enjoy the show because the wife couldn’t see the person she needed to see in order to enjoy the play.

While working on this topic, I was trying to find a picture to go above, and I came across something a bit closer to home. Sometime around 2019, the Mirvish company, which puts on most of the bigger-name plays in Toronto, stopped offering ASL-interpreted performances. The company says that when Deaf people ask about ASL interpreters, it replies that there are “open captioning performances.” However, as Deaf people have stated, open captions (which are what movies use) are not as good as ASL interpreters. There’s also the bonus that ASL interpreters are present during the actors’ rehearsals.

The theory is that hearing folks thought the ASL interpreters were “too distracting” for them and complained about the “distracting” people—despite the fact that they’re probably at an ASL-interpreter-based performance.

But what hurts even more is that despite the fact that Mirvish got rid of ASL interpreters, they introduced a different kind of accessibility—”relaxed performances” for people who are sensitive to light or sound. Why have accessibility for some but not for all?

Hotel Inaccessible Rooms

Hotel so called accessible rooms are another example of how people with disabilities are not thought of as “people”. There’s a lot of issues with hotel rooms from showers to bed or the way furniture is placed in the room that makes it inaccessible. That’s what I will be talking about in this topic.

One major problem of accessible rooms is that often people will find that there’s no way to have a shower if you’re use a wheelchair. It’s not roll in. Sometimes the shower requires you to step into it. Some people have found that apparently the front desk needs to bring a shower chair up to you instead of having it available in the room itself. Some people have said sometimes there’s also is no grab bars in a shower or other places in the bathroom a person might require it. Another shower issue is that the shower chair is on the opposite side of the shower from where the controls so it’s another example of assuming that disabled people are travelling with someone.

Another major problems is the height of the beds. Some wheelchair users have found the beds to be too low and others have found them to be too high. Regardless of which it it is, having them be too low or too high makes it difficult for wheelchair users to transfer from their wheelchair to the bed or vice versa the next day.

Another issue is apparently in accessible hotel rooms a lot of the time accessible hotel room desks are too high for wheelchair users. So it makes them useless to use either as a desk or otherwise -ie a table to put stuff on to eat or drink without needing to hold the drink or food.

Apparently even ADA compliance hotel rooms aren’t accessible either because the pathway that’s suppose to be wide enough for a wheelchair someone who put furniture in there decide to put the furniture on the walkway meaning that the room is inaccessible for people

Serval other issues about hotel inaccessibility is the fact that customers might book the accessible room by mistake because they assume it’s bigger or the other issue is that if a hotel has run out of regular rooms will give the accessible rooms to non-disabled people who don’t need it so that if someone who did need one showed up will be out of luck Or even disabled people will somehow wind up in non-accessible rooms despite booking accessible rooms. For some reason somehow third party booking sites like Exopida will sometimes book accessible hotel rooms for non-disabled guests.

Theme Park Inaccessbity

This topic will be about theme park inaccessbity mostly about queue lines and also potential about why having no storage bins at the rides might be a barrier for some disabled people to use a park.

An inaccessbity at theme parks is when queue lines instead of using metal or steel barriers to make the queue line they instead use a rope barrier. Why is this an inaccessbity issue? For a number of reasons- children playing with the ropes mean that the children could accidently get hit by a mobility device or by a cane. It’s easier to hop over and under the ropes in order to cut a queue then its is to cut a line with a steel or metal barrier. Mobility devices depending on the kind of device could potentially get stuck with a rope barrier versa is less likely to get stuck with a metal or steel frame.

Another inaccessbity barrier is apparently in the queue lines at Galaxy’s Edge at a Disney park, that someone had the smart idea of putting stuff like garage cans in the queue lines. Why is this an accessbity issues? it’s an accessbity issue due to the fact there’s no kind of bumps, or indicator of some kind to tell blind people who might be using a cane that there’s something in the way so it means they’ll bump into it.

At Cedar Park until sometime recently, Cedar Park’s theme park rides had storage bins at the rides for people to leave their backpacks and such but not too long ago they got rid of the storage bins and told people to use the paid lockers at the front of the park. Why is this an accessbity issue? It’s an accessbirty issue because people need to have their medicine or equipment nearby- Diabetics, people with asthma, Epi-Pens for people with allergies. Or people like myself might have time-sensitive medicine we need to take at a certain time depending on what time we get up in the morning. So banning backpacks and bags at rides means that there’s the risk of an emergency happening or people having to walk all the way back to the front of the park to get their equipment or medicine especially if they’re not feeling well

Fear of Asking for Accessibility

Cassidy Huff mentioned in a video from last year sometimes she’s afraid of asking for accessbity in places she goes or wants to go. Disabled people sometimes is afraid of asking for accessbity because they’re afraid of being dismissed, rejected, or humiliated or feel like a burden or “just seeking attention” or “too high maintenance” for “daring to ask” for a basic human right. It’s even worse if they had negative experiences with people dismissing or humiliating them for asking for such stuff so its a Catch 22

This is an inaccessbity issue for two reasons. The first reason is needing to ask for help robs disabled people of independence. It’s really annoying as disabled person to ask for help -its even worse when disabled people ask for help they sometimes get treat as stupid for even daring to ask.

Some examples of this is an article I found an professor at the university who is visually impaired had to fight for an office with better lightening and then once they got it people were accusing her of “stealing it from someone else”. Sometimes they got treated as stupid for not being able to see the room number on the conference because it somehow isn’t high contrast so when they ask if they’re at the right room people would say “it’s right there” or “look around”,

The second reason is that disabled are afraid of asking for help is they think if they ask for help they will make disabled look like they can’t survive without help. That by asking for help it means they’re incapable of doing things by themselves if they try to ask for accommodations both in professional (work or School) or just to get around town or stores.

Another reason for disabled people don’t ask for help is the fact they or if they’re underage their parents get tired of always having to advocate and educate people about their disabled and what accommodations they need But by not asking for help can lead to dangerous situations where they could have a problem and not be able to get help. That the fatigue of always having to ask for help even has a name “Accessibility Fatigue” It’s either having to do it all the time to get help, or it could take years to get the accommodation you asked for in the work place

General Ignorance II

As I mentioned in my previous post, General ignorance from the able bodied people is a major problem for disabled people. So I’m going to talk about several incidents talking about General Igorance- the first one is going to be something I saw first hand the other month, and another one is going to be talking about Molly Burke’s experience in finding a Literary agent. The others will tie back to previous topics in this post

One of the last times I was in Toronto, my friend and I were going to go home and we kind of had a problem due to the general ignorance. We’re going to get on the accessible car and there was a guy in a scooter just ahead of us. The guy was mostly up the ramp that the Customer Service Rep in the accessible car puts down on to the accessible platform-but the problem comes from the people getting on the same car from the south side of the train. The people coming on the accessible car from the south side were just barging/barreling past the guy in the scooter as they went to the 2nd level of the train as the guy tried to get on the train. My friend and I didn’t have time to wait so we got ourselves and the bundle buggy until a non-accessible car to my dismay.

The other week Molly Burke posted a video in the early bit of her video, she mentioned it took her a long time to write her book-Unseen How I Lost my Vison but Found My Voice (will be released on Sept 23,2025) but before she wrote the book she was having a hard time in trying to find a literary agent because all but the last one, Courtney, thought they knew better then Molly, and insisted that Molly would need a Ghostwriter, or a co-writer. Courtney is the only one who had another trust in that Molly could do the work for herself without needing to hire an extra person-ghost or co-writer

So something I have seen a lot of online is that when topics of Service dog teams and people allergic to dogs come up that more then 50% of people believe that the allergic person takes precedence over the Service Dog team which isn’t really true service dogs are consider medical equipment and can’t be left outside they have to be with their handlers at all times unless the handler leaves them with someone at home or otherwise.

The last bit of General ignorance will go back to the inaccessible Ontario Courthouse that I mentioned early on in this post.

There are several other problems for this inaccessible courthouse and they more or less tie back to previous topics in the post. Let’s start with things being in the way for a blind person. When David Lepofsky was visiting on either of his two trips he would constantly being running into things either at torso level, or shoulder level. Like a tactile map that has nothing Infront of it to indicate there’s going to be something there. Another thing he bumped into was a defibrator that wasn’t embedded into the wall.

Another inaccessible courthouse issue is needing help. First the court records isn’t on the first floor but on the third floor. The only way to get a number when you get up there is via a kiosk but there’s a catch the kiosk is touch-screen only. So that means someone virtual impaired can’t get help without going to the first floor find the service desk-which isn’t where it should be-and have someone come back up with them and have them do a number to get help with the kiosk to get help with what you came for in the first place.

Yet another issue is with Wheel-Trans issues. Because of how far away the courthouse is from the active streets the wheel-trans parking is a bit of a distant from the court house and you can’t see the Wheel-Trans from the waiting area inside the building expect for a video feed. When David Lepofsky visit in August 2024 the screen was off. Related to this is the fact a blind person would need help if they need a wheel trans pick up-ie someone sitting there with them to tell them that their Wheel-trans was there. Another issue is the problem is that Wheel Trans parking isn’t marked just for Wheel-trans so that anyone -including police cars can park there which means if someone needs wheel-trans and wheel-trans come and cars are there-the Wheel Tran will go outside of the video feed. When David Lepofsky was there there was a police car in the Wheel-Trans area.

There’s a lot of other problems with this inaccessible courthouse but I’m going to talk about two major problems. First problem is that it seems like that Provincial government didn’t talk to the disability advocates until the plans for the courthouse was already made-so that AODA Alliance and people like them had to fight for some stuff in the courthouse and half the time the developer refused to budge.

The final problem is that there’s a foundation called Rick Hansen Foundation and it’s suppose to certificated accessbity places but they don’t really do that. AODA Alliance has warned about this in the past but the Ontario government had them certificated the new courthouse as accessible when it’s anything but accessible

Conclusion

So as I said at the beginning not much has changed since the last year’s post. In some cases stuff has gotten much worse in the past year-the inaccessible courthouse for instance. But some things have changed there’s more disability advocates in the world to try to fight for accessibility rights for disabled people whereover we might live. Thanks for reading.