Huge Interim Victory for Torontonians with Disabilities — Toronto Infrastructure and Environment Committee Says No to Electric Scooters — Disability Advocates Pressing Full City Council to Agree

ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE

 

NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Huge Interim Victory for Torontonians with Disabilities — Toronto Infrastructure and Environment Committee Says No to Electric Scooters — Disability Advocates Pressing Full City Council to Agree

 

May 3, 2024 Toronto: Yesterday, Wednesday, May 2, 2024, witnessed a major but interim victory for vulnerable people with disabilities and seniors in Toronto. Toronto’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee voted with no dissenting votes to leave in place the ban on riding dangerous e-scooters in public. It approved other micromobility options to reduce car traffic and greenhouse gases but accepted a compelling new Toronto City Staff Report that concluded that there are no effective measures to prevent the proven dangers that e-scooters pose for vulnerable pedestrians.

 

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. They are a silent menace, endangering public safety in places that allow them. Riders and innocent pedestrians get seriously injured or killed. They especially endanger vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities.

 

Blind people don’t know when silent e-scooters rocket at them at over 20 KPH, driven by unlicensed, untrained, uninsured, unhelmeted, fun-seeking joyriders. Left strewn on sidewalks, e-scooters are tripping hazards for blind people and accessibility nightmares for wheelchair users.

 

On May 5, 2021, Toronto City Council voted unanimously to ban e-scooters. Three years later, the Infrastructure and Environment Committee heard yesterday from people with disabilities that spiffy new technology that e-scooter corporate lobbyists promote has not prevented these dangers.

 

The City has been advised not to allow e-scooters by two successive City Staff Reports in 2021 and 2024, by three strong recommendations by Toronto’s official Accessibility Advisory Committee passed in 2020, 2021 and 2024, and by a compelling open letter to Toronto City Council signed by at least 21 community organizations.

 

The Infrastructure and Environment Committee called on City Staff to take new action to address the fact that quite a number of people are illegally riding e-scooters on public roads and sidewalks in Toronto, with no effective law enforcement.

 

“It’s great that Toronto’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee stood up for people with disabilities and stood up to the well-financed e-scooter corporate lobbyists,” said David Lepofsky, AODA Alliance Chair. “We must keep up our grassroots advocacy blitz so that the entire Toronto City Council agrees when it considers this issue on May 22, 2024.”

 

Unfortunately, during a later part of yesterday’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee meeting, the Committee disregarded serious disability safety concerns when it discussed future plans for bike paths and other changes to Eglinton Avenue. The AODA Alliance’s deputation to the Committee on that issue, backed by the CNIB, called for the City to stop building new bike paths on top of sidewalks. They endanger vulnerable pedestrians with disabilities such as blind people, as was revealed last fall in a widely viewed 8-minute AODA Alliance online video.

 

“No City Council members on the Infrastructure and Environment Committee asked City Staff about this problem or proposed any motions to stop the City from using public money to create new disability barriers,” said Lepofsky. “We need our elected leaders to take action now to protect us. These new bike lanes are bad for both pedestrians and cyclists.”

 

The AODA Alliance supports expansion of Toronto’s network of bike lanes but urges that it must be designed in a way that does not endanger cyclists or vulnerable pedestrians, such as people with disabilities.

 

Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, aodafeedback@gmail.com

Twitter: @aodaalliance

 

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