AODA Alliance
ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE
NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ford Government Flagrantly Ignored the Proven Danger to Vulnerable Pedestrians with Disabilities when it Extended its Pilot with the Silent Menace of Electric Scooters for a Second 5-Year Period
December 9, 2024, Toronto: When the Ford Government quietly extended its pilot with electric scooters for a second 5-year period last month, it flagrantly ignored proven dangers to vulnerable people with disabilities and seniors, according to a widely recognized non-partisan grassroots disability coalition. The Ford Government said it conducted its first 5-year e-scooters pilot to gather data on the impact of e-scooters. Yet the Transportation Ministry never specifically investigated e-scooters danger to pedestrians with disabilities and seniors, even though the widely recognized AODA Alliance repeatedly raised this in briefs, media interviews, and public presentations.
Blind people don’t know when the e-scooters, a silent menace, rocket at them at over 20 KPH, driven by unlicensed, untrained, uninsured, unhelmeted, fun-seeking joyriders. Often left strewn on sidewalks, e-scooters are dangerous tripping hazards for blind people and accessibility nightmares for wheelchair users.
During a November 22, 2024 meeting with Ministry of Transportation officials responsible for the provincial e-scooters pilot’s second 5-year extension, disability community representatives learned the following, confirmed in a December 8, 2024 letter from the AODA Alliance to the Transportation Minister, set out below::
- The Ministry took no concerted steps over the past five years to gather information on the dangers that e-scooters pose to vulnerable people with disabilities. The Ministry’s consultation template where it sought feedback on the impact of e-scooters did not include any specific questions about their impact on people with disabilities.
- The Ministry conducted no consultations with the disability community during the last five-year e-scooter pilot on the impact of e-scooters on them. Yet the Ministry knew that several municipal Accessibility Advisory Committees, such as Toronto’s and Ottawa’s, passed strong recommendations calling on their municipalities not to allow e-scooters.
- Ministry staff met with e-scooter corporate lobbyists before the Ford Government decided to extend the e-scooter pilot for another five-year period, but they did not meet with the AODA Alliance and other disability advocates until after that decision was made. Ministry staff said that they had met with the corporate lobbyists before that Government decision was made because the corporate lobbyists had asked to meet with them at a point in time before the Government decided to extend the pilot. Yet the AODA Alliance and other disability advocates had also asked to meet with Ministry staff, and indeed with the Transportation Minister, before the Government made its final decision to extend its e-scooters pilot for a second five-year period.
- Ministry staff said that the information source to which they turned for feedback on the impact of e-scooters during the first pilot was Ontario’s municipalities. They therefore left it to municipalities to share feedback about e-scooters’ dangers to people with disabilities. That includes municipalities like Ottawa, Mississauga and Brampton. Those municipalities have disregarded or marginalized the dangers that e-scooters pose for vulnerable people with disabilities.
- Ministry staff tracked Toronto’s decisions in 2021 and in 2024 not to allow e-scooters. They must have known that Toronto’s two widely publicized decisions in 2021 and again in 2024 against allowing e-scooters were largely driven by e-scooters’ dangers for people with disabilities. Toronto’s 2021 and 2024 City staff reports thoroughly documented their dangers.
- “Despite the proven dangers that e-scooters create for vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others, the Ford Government added absolutely no additional safeguards in its second five-year e-scooters pilot to prevent the dangers to their safety and accessibility,” said AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky. “Premier Ford continues to inflict the undue burden on people with disabilities to have to battle well-funded e-scooter corporate lobbyists in one city after the next in an effort to try to protect themselves from e-scooters.”
Ministry of Transportation staff told the AODA Alliance and other disability advocates that they are open to the possibility of amending the e-scooters regulation which the Ford Government recently passed in order to enact safeguards for vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others. The AODA Alliance has requested an urgent meeting with Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria to explore possible amendments. No Ford Government Transportation Minister has ever met with the AODA Alliance to discuss the dangers they pose for people with disabilities.
“There are only 23 days until 2025, the deadline which the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act sets for the Ontario Government to have led this province to be accessible to people with disabilities,” said Lepofsky. “Extending the e-scooters pilot for an additional and unnecessary five years creates new and dangerous disability barriers at a time when the Government is far behind fulfilling its duties under the Disabilities Act for which we fought so long and hard.”
Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @aodaalliance
For more background, visit the AODA Alliance website’s e-scooters page and the September 24, 2024 brief to the Ministry by the AODA Alliance on its proposal to extend the pilot for another five years.
Text of the AODA Alliance’s December 8, 2024, Letter to the Ontario Minister of Transportation
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance
United for a Barrier-Free Society for All People with Disabilities
Web: www.aodaalliance.org Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance Facebook: www.facebook.com/aodaalliance/
December 8, 2024
Via Email
To: Hon. Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria Minister of Transportation
Ministry of Transportation
5th Floor
777 Bay St.
Toronto, ON M7A 1Z8
Tel.: 416-327-9200
Dear Minister,
Re: Preventing Dangers to Safety and Accessibility that Threaten Ontarians with Disabilities,
We write to ask you and your Ministry to amend the regulations governing the second five-year pilot with electric scooters that your Government has just adopted by regulation in order to incorporate substantial safeguards to protect vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and other pedestrians from the proven danger to them that e-scooters create. We ask you to direct your Ministry officials to immediately develop a list of options in consultation with the disability and seniors’ communities. We also again seek an urgent meeting with you to discuss this.
On November 22, 2024, your Ministry’s policy officials held a virtual meeting with a group of disability community representatives. We had sought a chance to speak with your Ministry before your Government made a final decision on whether to extend its e-scooters pilot for a second period of five years. However, your Government decided to extend that pilot before your Ministry officials met with us.
We wish to confirm key points emerging at that November 22, 2024 meeting with your Ministry officials. They were the lead policy officials involved with overseeing the first five-year e-scooters pilot, reviewing feedback on it, and drafting the proposal to extend it for another five years. Here are key points:
- Your policy staff clearly were, at best, minimally alive to the twin dangers that the silent menace of e-scooters create for vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others. First, people who are blind, who have low vision, or who are deafblind can’t know when silent e-scooters race at them at over 10 or 20 kph, driven by unlicensed, untrained, uninsured, unhelmeted, fun-seeking joyriders. The same is so for sighted pedestrians when an e-scooter rockets at them from behind. Fragile seniors and those whose mobility is slow or limited cannot easily get out of the way even if they see a silent e-scooter racing towards them. They are a safety danger.
Second, when left strewn on sidewalks, e-scooters are dangerous tripping hazards for people who are blind or partially sighted. They are major accessibility barriers to a clear path of travel for wheelchair users.
It is a major failing that the Ministry was so evidently oblivious to or deprioritized the seriousness of these dangers. We have been all over the media, discussing this over the past five years. It is a standard practice for a Ministry to closely track media coverage of an issue in which it is engaged.
Moreover, we brought these safety dangers to your Ministry’s attention over five years ago, when it first was considering an e-scooter pilot, and once again, in our detailed September 24, 2024 brief to the Ministry on its proposal to extend the pilot for another five years. Your Ministry staff said they were responsible for reviewing feedback received during its consultation on this proposed extension.
- Your Ministry did not take any concerted steps over the past five years to gather information on the dangers that e-scooters could pose or have posed to vulnerable people with disabilities. Your Ministry staff agreed that its consultation template or document where it sought feedback on the impact of e-scooters did not include any specific questions about their impact on people with disabilities.
- Your Ministry staff conducted no consultations with the disability community during the last five-year e-scooter pilot on the impact of e-scooters on them. Ministry officials did not dispute that we have been quite visible and public over the past five years raising these concerns and that several municipal Accessibility Advisory Committees, such as Toronto’s and Ottawa’s, had passed clear recommendations calling on their municipalities not to allow e-scooters at all.
- Your Ministry staff agreed that they had met with e-scooter corporate lobbyists before the final decision was made to extend the e-scooter pilot for another five-year period, but they did not meet with us, as disability advocates, until after that decision was made. Ministry staff said that they had met with the corporate lobbyists before that Government decision was made because the corporate lobbyists had asked to meet with them at a point in time before the Government decided to extend the pilot. This is, of course, no excuse. We too had asked to meet with your Ministry staff, and indeed with you as Minister, before the Government made its final decision to extend its e-scooters pilot for a second five-year period.
- The purpose of the Government’s first five-year pilot was to gather information about the impact of e-scooters. Thus, the Ministry’s failure to take any focused steps to gather information about their impact on people with disabilities is very disturbing. It shows a callous disregard for the safety and accessibility of vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others. At the start of this pilot, the Government said that safety is a priority for it.
- Ministry staff said that the information source to which they turned for feedback on the impact of e-scooters during the first pilot was Ontario’s municipalities. They therefore left it to municipalities to share feedback about e-scooters’ dangers to people with disabilities. That includes municipalities like Ottawa, Mississauga and Brampton. Those municipalities have disregarded or marginalized the dangers that e-scooters pose for vulnerable people with disabilities.
- Your Ministry staff said they tracked Toronto’s decisions in 2021 and again in 2024 to not allow e-scooters. They therefore must have known that Toronto’s two decisions in 2021 and again in 2024 against allowing e-scooters were driven in very large part because of the proven dangers that e-scooters create for people with disabilities. Toronto’s 2021 and 2024 City staff reports thoroughly documented their dangers.
- Despite the proven dangers that e-scooters create for us, Ministry staff confirmed that your Government added absolutely no additional safeguards in its second five-year e-scooters pilot to protect vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others whom e-scooters could endanger. The Government therefore imposes the burden on people with disabilities to have to battle well-funded e-scooter corporate lobbyists in one city after the next in an effort to try to protect themselves from e-scooters.
- Finally, your Ministry staff confirmed that it remains open to the Government to amend its e-scooters pilot regulation to add further safeguards. We listed several needed safeguards in the AODA Alliance’s September 24, 2024 brief to your Ministry. Ministry staff said they would be open to working with us to explore such safeguards. We said we are agreeable to help.
Please now direct your Ministry staff to treat the creation and enactment of disability safeguard amendments to your e-scooter pilot regulation as a major priority, with a view to their being enacted by the end of February 2025, well before the next summer season begins. We so state even though the far better and safer option is to cancel the second e-scooter pilot. You do not need another five-year pilot to investigate this topic. You need to properly investigate the e-scooters’ impact during the first five-year pilot.
Sincerely,
David Lepofsky CM, O. Ont
Chair Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance
Twitter: @davidlepofsky
cc: The Hon Premier Doug Ford Email premier@ontario.ca
Raymond Cho, Minister for Seniors and Accessibility Raymond.Cho@ontario.ca
Douglas Jones, Deputy Minister of Transportation Email: Doug.Jones@ontario.ca
Melissa Thomson, Deputy Minister for Seniors and Accessibility Melissa.Thomson@ontario.ca
Meenu Sikand, Assistant Deputy Minister for Seniors and Accessibility Meenu.Sikand@ontario.ca