Attention Disability and Community Organizations – Please Email Toronto City Hall Today to Say Yes to Micromobility But No To E-Scooters!

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities

Website: www.aodaalliance.org

Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com

Twitter: @aodaalliance

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/aodaalliance

 

 

Attention Disability and Community Organizations – Please Email Toronto City Hall Today to Say Yes to Micromobility But No To E-Scooters!

 

May 21, 2024

 

SUMMARY

 

In less than 48 hours, starting 9:30 on Thursday, May 23, 2024, Toronto City Council will vote on saying yes to micromobility and no to electric scooters (e-scooters). We urgently need as many disability and other community organizations as possible to email City Hall today at the email address below to urge City Council to approve the Toronto City Staff Report “as is” that recommends a big yes to micromobility but no to e-scooters.

 

Toronto City Hall will post online any email from organizations, but not from individuals. That is why it is especially important for disability and other community organizations to write Toronto City Council today. All the information you need, including the email address to write, is set out below.

 

The e-scooter corporate lobbyists are no doubt trying to flood City Hall with messages. The disability community must make its voice heard. We need Toronto City Council to stand up to those e-scooter corporate lobbyists and stand up for people with disabilities, seniors and others whom e-scooters endanger.

 

MORE DETAILS

 

Address your email to: councilmeeting@toronto.ca

 

Mark your email as re Agenda Item IE13.1 Micromobility

 

All your email needs to say is that your organization urges Toronto City Council to say yes to micromobility but no to e-scooters and to approve the April 25, 2024 Toronto City Staff Report on Micromobility without any changes. E-scooters endanger vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others.

 

The April 25, 2024 Toronto City Staff Report on micromobility recommends that Toronto allow some forms of micromobility but not e-scooters.

 

If you want more details, check out the AODA Alliance’s May 13, 2024 letter to Toronto City Council. The May 13, 2024 AODA Alliance letter to Toronto City Council makes these key points:

“The case against allowing e-scooters in Toronto is overwhelming. It includes:

 

  • City Staff twice conducted exhaustive studies on e-scooters, at the direction of City Council. As a result, City Staff Reports in 2021 and again in 2024 found that e-scooters do not provide the alleged benefits asserted by e-scooter corporate lobbyists. They found that e-scooters create a serious danger to vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others. They concluded that no city that allowed e-scooters has found an effective, enforceable way to regulate them. They recommend that Toronto say no to e-scooters.
  • On May 5, 2021, Toronto City Council voted unanimously to ban e-scooters.
  • At its May 2, 2024 meeting, the Infrastructure and Environment Committee voted to approve the City Staff Report on micromobility, including its recommendation against allowing e-scooters. There were no dissenting votes.
  • The City of Toronto has been advised not to allow e-scooters by three strong recommendations of Toronto’s official Accessibility Advisory Committee passed in 2020, 2021 and 2024.
  • Last year, a compelling open letter to Toronto City Council signed by at least 21 community organizations urged Toronto City Council not to legalize riding e-scooters in public in Toronto.
  • At every meeting of any committee of Toronto City Council addressing this issue and at which delegations were permitted, diverse voices from the disability community were unanimous in calling for e-scooters to remain banned. For example, at its May 2, 2024 meeting Disability advocates from the AODA Alliance, the CNIB, the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, and the Canadian Council of the Blind all told the Infrastructure and Environment Committee not to permit e-scooters. People with disabilities told the Infrastructure and Environment Committee that spiffy new technology that e-scooter corporate lobbyists promote has not prevented the serious dangers that e-scooters create.

It is not good enough to simply ban e-scooters from sidewalks. Several cities have tried this. It doesn’t work. People regularly continue to ride them on sidewalks.

 

It is not good enough to just try to regulate e-scooters. To legalize them and try to regulate them will just lead to more e-scooters and more danger.

 

We know that some people are now riding e-scooters in Toronto even though it is illegal. That is because there has been no effective law enforcementt nor any serious effort to alert the public that riding e-scooters in public is illegal. The new City Staff Report calls for new action to address this. We would be happy to assist in those efforts.”

 

Learn more about our campaign against e-scooters by visiting the AODA Alliance website’s e-scooters page.