[nfbwatlk] FW: [List] FW: [Viewpoints] Blind lawyer challenges TTC;

[Mike Freeman]

-----Original Message-----
From: List [mailto:list-bounces at cfb.ca] On Behalf Of Mary ellen
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 7:22 PM
To: list at cfb.ca
Subject: [List] FW: [Viewpoints] Blind lawyer challenges TTC;

The following article demonstrates the problems we face in Canada.

David Lepofsky accurately expresses his fear of center platforms in subway
stations.  It's very real for him; he's not being melodramatic.

Across North America, thousands of blind people use center platforms every
day.  Most don't give it any particular thought, except for the vigilance
required to keep track of the platform edge and listen for the correct
train.  

So why has Mr. Lepofsky developed an honest conviction that center platforms
are inaccessible leading  him to paralyzing fear of using them, while
thousand of others have developed a "no big deal" attitude?

The answer is training and expectations.  Students won't learn to "read" the
information their canes give them about changes in the terrain
automatically.  Somehow they must come to expect that they can learn to do
so.  Then they must practice until theory becomes reality.  They need tools,
like canes that are long enough and responsive enough.

A very famous education study tested the power of teacher expectations on
student learning.  Teachers were told that they had been given a class of
exceptionally bright students.  In reality, they had been given a class with
an average mix of bright and not so bright pupils.  At the end of the year,
students in the classes where the teacher had been told their students  were
brighter than average performed much better than average on standardized
tests.  It would have been unethical to do the reverse and tell teachers
their class was sub par.

Look at what John Rafferty, CEO of CNIB, which is supposed to have expert
knowledge about blindness, is quoted as having said about the capacity of
blind travelers.

John Rafferty, president of the CNIB, formerly the Canadian National
Institute for the Blind, agrees, saying the organization "supports the
critical need for all public transit stations to have side platforms to
assist spatial orientation rather than centre platforms."  

Our CNIB "teachers" believe blind people are a class of sub par students.
Is it any wonder that many of us live down to their expectations?

Blind people increasingly expect to live in a welcoming social and
environmental context.  We're expecting more from life than any generation
of blind people in history.  But are we expecting less and less from
ourselves? To what extent should blind people learn to manage in the world
as it is, inconvenient as that adaptation can sometimes be?  When is it a
betrayal of our citizenship rights to fail to insist upon structural
modifications or changes in the way information is presented? Not easy
questions to answer.

The most disturbing puzzle of all is what we can do to give practical help
to our blind brothers and sisters who are still afraid and have not yet
rejected the low expectations imposed on them--while at the same time
denouncing "accessibility" measures that are both unnecessary and
patronizing.

Our struggle is made all the more difficult when the lowest expectations of
all issue from the alleged "font of wisdom" for the blind.

David Lepofsky, I remember feeling your fear and wish only the best for you.
John Rafferty and friends, shame on you  for what you continue to do to
blight our futures with your bigotry of low expectations!
-----Original Message-----


From: Viewpoints [mailto:viewpoints-bounces at lists.screenreview.org] On
Behalf Of Gaston Bedard
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 5:27 PM
To: viewpoints at lists.screenreview.org
Subject: [Viewpoints] Blind lawyer challenges TTC;


Blind lawyer challenges TTC; 

New centre-loading platforms unsafe for the visually impaired

Todd Coyne
The Toronto Star, August 19, 2014

David Lepofsky prefers his back to the wall over his feet on the edge.

The blind Toronto lawyer, who 20 years ago launched a landmark human rights
case against the TTC, forcing it to implement stop announcements on its
vehicles, is sounding the alarm on accessibility again. This time he's
taking the fight to Metrolinx over construction of the $5.3-billion Eglinton
Crosstown light rail line.

The issue is the transit agency's decision to build centre-loading platforms
in all 12 of the new LRT line's underground stations.

Centre platforms, which sit between the tracks, are dangerous and less
accessible to passengers with vision loss than side platforms that have a
wall at the back, Lepovsky said.

"You put your back to the wall and wait to hear the subway, then you know
you're safe to walk out," Lepofsky said. "With centre platforms, you don't
know where you are on the platform and it's a drop off either side."

John Rafferty, president of the CNIB, formerly the Canadian National
Institute for the Blind, agrees, saying the organization "supports the
critical need for all public transit stations to have side platforms to
assist spatial orientation rather than centre platforms."

Side platforms provide clearer walkways free of obstacles like support
columns, trash cans or benches in the middle of the passenger waiting area.

The CNIB estimates there are 116,000 people living with severe vision loss
in Toronto, nearly all of whom rely on public transportation to get around.
Blind since his teen years, Lepofsky chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians
with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODAA). The group is tasked with keeping the
province on track to meet its 2005 targets before their 2025 deadline.

Due at the end of 2020, the Eglinton LRT project could be a major
accessibility showpiece for the Ontario government. But the AODAA chair said
the platform decision has knocked the project's accessibility goals off
track.

Lepofsky wrote to Metrolinx in June asking the agency to abandon
centre-platform designs for all future transit stations, not yet knowing of
the Eglinton line decision.

Metrolinx president and CEO Bruce McCuaig broke the bad news to the AODAA in
a letter the following month.

"The decision to provide centre platforms in the tunnelled sections of the
Eglinton Crosstown LRT had been made a number of years ago, for a variety of
reasons," McCuaig wrote in a letter provided to the Star. "This design has
been incorporated in subsequent procurement documents and cannot be altered
at this time."

That "variety of reasons," according to Metrolinx spokesperson Jamie
Robinson, includes lower construction costs and, ironically, better
"accessibility."

"Overall, the station width is less, so you're going to have reduced land
take and therefore capital costs," Robinson said.

"If I'm any person - let alone a person with an accessibility issue - and I
happen to get on the wrong train, I don't have to go to the next station and
up around and down to reconnect."

All Toronto subway stations use textured tiles at the platform edge to warn
passengers of the dangers of falling over or being hit by an incoming train.

But those common yellow warning strips are no more than a single stride deep
for Lepofsky and are easily skipped over with his cane.

In addition to the warning strip, Toronto's centre platform stations feature
a similarly textured tile path meant to lead those with poor eyesight along
a safe route across the platform.

However, these paths are easily missed as they weave between support columns
and around benches - not to mention passengers -and are often mistaken for
the no-go zone at the platform's edge, Lepofsky said.

"Once I feel that, I freeze," he said, tapping his white cane with
uncertainty on the safety path at York Mills Station's busy centre platform.
"Because the cost of getting it wrong is very, very scary."

Rafferty agreed, saying textured tiles are useful but are a small step on
the road to accessibility.

Janelle Rooplall, 23, was blinded by a childhood disease and, as a recent
transplant to Toronto, has been relying on the kindness of strangers to help
her through the city's subway system. "It's not accessible at all," Rooplall
said, finding her way aboard a southbound train to College Station, where
she took the arm of a stranger who eventually hailed her a cab on the
street. "I have to get strangers to help me everywhere."

end of article.


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