Metrolinx Accessibility Wayfinding Blunders for Blind Passengers is the Focus of AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky’s July Column in the Toronto Star’s Metroland Publications

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Metrolinx Accessibility Wayfinding Blunders for Blind Passengers is the Focus of AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky’s July Column in the Toronto Star’s Metroland Publications

July 24, 2026

SUMMARY

Metrolinx’ accessibility wayfinding blunders for blind transit riders in new Toronto transit stations is the subject of AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky’s monthly column on disability issues for July in the Toronto Star’s 25 Metroland publications. Read it, below. This column was based on last month’s widely viewed AODA Alliance video about that mess

This column was published before this week’s new AODA Alliance 5-minute video about the stupidest ramp in the world, also brought to you by Metrolinx. This newest video has now been viewed over 123000 times. It is the most-often viewed AODA Alliance video. We hit this milestone after this new video was only online for four days!

How You Can Help

Share this article with others.
Write Metrolinx at accessibility@metrolinx.com to alert them about any disability barriers you have experienced or seen at a transit station or stop for which Metrolinx is responsible.
If you haven’t yet watched it, check out our 5-minute video on the stupidest ramp in the world as well as our earlier video on wayfinding accessibility blunders on the Eglinton Crosstown transit line. Share them with others.

MORE DETAILS

^Brampton Guardian July 9, 2026

Originally posted at: https://www.bramptonguardian.com/opinion/columnists/ontario-needs-to-reform-transit-accessibility-designs/article_63049252-8d54-5a16-8bce-753ae38c544a.html

Toronto struggles with public transit accessibility, raising concerns for blind and low-vision riders

Fixing wayfinding markers at transit stations part of ongoing discussion with Metrolinx CEO, writes disability advocate

By David Lepofsky

David Lepofsky is the chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance.

Provincial politicians boast about building new public transit. Yet, too often, the Ontario government doesn’t ensure new public transit is fully accessible to passengers with disabilities.

This hurts us all.

Two provincial agencies are responsible for this — Infrastructure Ontario, and, for Toronto/Hamilton, Metrolinx.

Here is a ridiculous Toronto example. It could as easily occur anywhere in Ontario.

After years of delays and billions of dollars of cost overruns, the Toronto Transit Commission’s (TTC) Eglinton Crosstown LRT line finally opened earlier this year. Metrolinx committed that it would be accessible. TTC’s website claims it is. Not so!

A majority of this line’s stops are underground stations, not surface stops. As a blind person seeking to independently use this line, stations are labyrinthian, with multiple floors.

Each station and each floor is differently laid out.

Metrolinx knew of an easy way to make these stations simple for blind and low-vision people to independently navigate.

They need cane-detectable way-finding markings on the floor. These form our tactile Yellow Brick Road from the surface entrance to the train platform and vice versa.

It’s great that Metrolinx installed these tactile way-finding floor markings in each station.

However, they only provided them to and from the elevators, not the escalators or stairs.

Metrolinx absurdly decided that blind people should only use elevators. In more than 50 years as a blind person riding the TTC on my own, I have always used escalators or stairs.

There are good reasons to avoid depending on those elevators if you can.

TTC’s transit station elevators are notoriously unreliable and go out of service. Even worse, in each station, you must take two successive elevators to get from the street level down to the trains.

If either elevator is out of service, that station is inaccessible for passengers needing elevators.

As well, it’s quicker to take escalators or stairs for those able to do so, rather than waiting for two successive sluggish elevators.

If blind people must use those elevators, even though we can use stairs or escalators, our increased demand on the elevators means more delays for people who absolutely must use them, such as people in wheelchairs.

Providing accessibility for people with disabilities benefits everyone.

I’m told the signage in Eglinton Crosstown stations is not great. Proper tactile way-finding floor markings for blind people would also help sighted people find their way.

Infuriated by this mess, I co-created an eight-minute online video to let the public witness this accessibility bungle.

Our video triggered great media coverage. As a result, the Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay agreed to meet with me and Marcia Yale, president of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians.

We asked Metrolinx to fix this way-finding mess. We also asked for an independent audit of the accessibility of the Eglinton Crosstown stations for other disability barriers.

We didn’t get a categorical yes, but the CEO agreed to explore both and to work with us on this.

In the world of chronically uphill disability advocacy, getting the meeting at all, and moving the discussion this far, is a glimmer of progress.

The Metrolinx CEO asked for feedback on how to avoid this in the future.

We’ve advocated for years to get the Ontario government to reform how it designs infrastructure projects. It’s a recurring problem. We have lots of practical solutions.

This example is not the only way that Metrolinx failed, when it comes to accessibility on this line. Email Metrolinx at accessibility@metrolinx.com or phone 1-888-438-6646. Tell them about disability problems on any public transit they run. Send them a photo or video of the barrier. Do this whether you live in, or may visit, southern Ontario.

The Ford government pledged to “lead by example” on disability accessibility. It set a poor example.

David Lepofsky is a retired lawyer who chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance and the Toronto District School Boards Special Education Advisory Committee. He is a visiting professor of disability rights at the law schools at Western, Queen’s and the University of Ottawa, and hosts a podcast: Disability Rights and Wrongs – The David Lepodcast.