The Seated View

“ "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. " — Margaret Mead Do you live in Ontario? Then we need your help! A few months ago, I became involved in t he Older Women's Network's "Living in Place" campaign . It’s calling for the Ontario Building Code to be changed to require that ALL new residential buildings be 100% universal design or easily adaptable, so that anyone of any age or ability can live there.  Toronto City Council has endorsed this campaign. How does this affect you? As I wrote in my post about the day Living in Place went to Queens Park , disability increases as we age. In fact, as former Lt. Gov. David Onley once said, disability is the only minority group that anyone can join at any time. But accessibility isn’t just important because of how your body might change, either temporarily or permanently. It also affects your social l...

We have an accessible housing crisis. This will get worse as the population ages — not in some far-off future, but rather immediately so when the silver tsunami hits in a few years. Despite this, developers exclude accessibility in their design, continuing to build barriers to people with disabilities. This exclusion is in violation of human rights law. Quite a mouthful, isn’t it? I recently was involved in a fantastic advocacy campaign at Queen’s Park (the Ontario provincial legislature) and more that moment. First, a bit of background John the accessible housing crisis. Building Code basics The Ontario Building Code requires a minimum of accessibility in common areas, such as turning radiuses, an automatic door opener on the front door, and a few others. Unfortunately, the standards are based on a fairly compact manual chair, not on the larger chairs and powered mobility aids that are more common now. The 2012 version of the Code finally included more than ...

This is the first in my new series of posts taking a look at bad solutions for accessibility, and hopefully the odd good one, as well. There are a couple of places in my extended neighbourhood that have created access using both a ramp and steps. One is at a local grocery store   The other is the relatively new design at Harbourfront where access to the walkway close to the water is provided using alternating steps and ramps I’m a big fan of the theory of universal accessibility . This philosophy looks at design for the built environment with a view towards making it accessible for as many people as possible, without needing to adapt or create specialized design for people with disabilities. Terrific idea, right? It looks at that the people using the design as one group, rather than a number of specialized groups, some of which may not be included. One way in which many interpret universal accessibility is to eliminate stairs, instead using ge...