Canadian activist challenges inaccessible buses

From the Ottawa Citizen in Canada:

OTTAWA - After challenging the National Capital Commission because the York Street Steps are not accessible to the disabled, Bob Brown is taking the Société de Transport de l'Outaouais to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal because its buses aren't wheelchair-accessible.

The tribunal is to hear the case in October.

Mr. Brown, 54, uses a motorized wheelchair after being disabled in a car crash when he was 18.

In February 2005, he was unable to get on an STO bus on Rideau Street bound for Winterlude at Jacques Cartier Park in Gatineau. Now on medical leave from his job with the federal government, he says Canada's capital city should be a model of accessibility for the disabled.

"If you are a person with a disability using a wheelchair living on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River, you can't use the Quebec transit system," Mr. Brown said Tuesday. "Most of the OC Transpo buses work for me, but I can't use the STO buses because they are not accessible.

"The Canadian Human Rights Act says they must provide reasonable accommodation, but my understanding is that STO buses won't work for wheelchairs until 2017."

Mr. Brown says he isn't interested in using special para-transit buses for the disabled because he wants to be able to travel without reserving a bus a day in advance. He said the STO operates a bus service for the disabled, but it is for Quebec residents only.

STO spokeswoman Céline Gauthier says some buses can be lowered for passengers who have limited mobility, but it will be years before they are wheelchair-accessible. She says the bus company sometimes picks up disabled Ottawa residents in Gatineau if they are registered Para Transpo users.

In 2006, Mr. Brown won a tribunal decision over the NCC's grand York Steps, an award-winning $1.7-million pedestrian link between ceremonial Ottawa and Lowertown, descending from Sussex Drive by the U.S. Embassy.

The tribunal found that the 45-step project was discriminatory because the steps were not accessible to the disabled and ordered the NCC to work out a solution at the site. Building an elevator would have cost at least $427,000.

The Federal Court of Canada overturned the tribunal decision in June. Federal Court Justice Simon Noël said providing elevator access at the Daly building site, 130 metres from the York Steps, was the only logical, reasonable course of action for the NCC.