Thomas, a former Paralympian and power-chair user, knows the long travel times all too well. A lot of Para Transpo riders in Ottawa share the feeling. Though the system is designed for Ottawa residents who cannot take conventional transit due to varying disabilities, many riders often feel frustrated over its lack of punctuality, inflexibility and restrictive, outdated booking system.

In October, Thomas invited Coun. Glen Gower, the chair of the Transit Commission, to join her in a ride-along to understand how a small errand can be a time-consuming ordeal for Para Transpo riders.

The pair went out to pick up a bottle of distilled water for their test. It took them two hours for a journey that would normally take less than 15 minutes by car, because the transit service does not allow customers to book two trips within a 90-minute window, forcing riders to wait for a return trip after they have finished shopping. Thomas had to book two separate trips.

“After that trip, I contacted OC Transpo staff and I said, ‘What’s the rationale for this? Why can’t you book within a one-hour window?’ I haven’t heard back from them yet,” Gower told The Capital Chill.

The 90-minute waiting period is just one roadblock for Para Transpo riders.

“People in this community say you should be grateful that there is a service. But it’s not much of service. It’s not providing what I need on a regular basis and it’s very inconsistent,” Thomas said.

Punctuality woes

In November, OC Transpo released a report that boasts an on-time performance of over 90 per cent for Para Transpo service in 2023 to date. The satisfaction among riders paints a different picture.

“They are always late,” says Jay Baldwin, a Carleton student who uses Para Transpo every week. They were interviewed while waiting more than 30 minutes for their ride to the pharmacy. OC Transpo would consider the ride only three minutes late because the clock doesn’t start until after the first half hour.

For riders like Baldwin and Thomas, a recurring issue is that their rides may technically meet the company’s criteria for punctuality, but that often does not align with their needs.

“If a person with a disability is 30 minutes late to work as often as Para Transpo is 30 minutes late to pick me up, they would not have a job,” Thomas explained.

Kyle Humphrey is another long-time Para Transpo rider and disability advocate. Para Transpo’s delayed service has put his employment at risk in the past by making him late for work. He says he will take the LRT if he lands an interview during his current job search. “I want to get there on time,” he said.

Long-standing requests for same-day booking unmet

When it comes to providing service for Para Transpo riders, the city has come a long way from when it limited riders to only booking four trips a day. Despite this progress, the reservation-only policy remains a problem for some: riders must book buses at least one day in advance, creating yet another barrier on their journey to independent mobility.

“People with disabilities also need to go to work and school and hang out,” Baldwin said. “But the system considers us as unproductive people who never go out.”

Unlike able-bodied people, Para Transpo users are still routinely excluded from moving spontaneously, whether for work or entertainment.

During the Ottawa Accessibility Advisory committee meeting last month, Humphrey said that he hopes people with disabilities could also have “equity in terms of transit,” which is why he has been pushing for a same-day booking system for more than four years.

For some, the struggle has been even longer. “We’ve been demanding same-day bookings for decades, and it hasn’t happened,” said Jerry Fiori, the former chair of Ottawa Disability Coalition.

Winter brings additional challenges

Para Transpo riders “have major issues year-round, but especially in the wintertime,” Fiori said.

Para Transpo’s application form for registering as a customer says that Ottawa’s conventional transit service “may be a better alternative for those who want greater independence and flexibility.” Some riders do use conventional buses. But in the winter, Para Transpo can be the only option for a lot of them.

Thomas explained that she cannot use conventional buses at all when there’s snow on the ground. She said she cannot get to the bus stop on her power chair “as soon as it snows more than a centimetre,” and only Para Transpo can provide “door-to-door service” helping riders to and from the buses.

Fiori seconds Thomas’s experience. “Getting about is really difficult when we have more and more snow and ice events,” he says. “And sometimes you cannot actually get out because there are no rides available for you in the wintertime at peak periods.”

Para Transpo could always use more investment

The city is set to spend more than ever before on public transit in 2024. According to the Transit Commission’s 2024 budget plan, $195.9 million is earmarked for “Bus and Para Transpo.” However, the lion’s share of this budget would be spent on the “Zero Emissions Bus Program” for buying new conventional buses, which would cost $179.7 million.

The city is going to increase Para Transpo’s services budget in line with inflation and purchase new Para Transport buses in the next two years, Gower says.

However, the specific budget allotment for Para Transpo is not clear because spending is “buried into other line items,” he says.

“If we roll out same-day booking, you have to make sure you have the resources to provide that service. And in a city as big as Ottawa, that could be a real challenge,” Gower says.

OC Transpo is “studying the feasibility of overnight service, same-day booking,” according to a written statement from Pat Scrimgeour, director of transit customer systems and planning. 

Para Transpo riders will persist in their efforts to turn the longstanding study of the issue into a reality.

Humphrey and Thomas have been running a Facebook group named “Let’s Make Ottawa Accessible.” Humphrey says that he wants to include more people in the conversation.

“At the end of the day, this shouldn’t be a battle of ‘us versus them,'” Humphrey says. “This shouldn’t be a battle of ‘LRT versus Para Transpo.’ This should be a battle of ‘Let’s make Ottawa accessible’.”

“The main funding commitments of the economic statement didn’t consider disabled people at all,” said Carly Fox, communications and partnership director for The National Education Association of Disabled Students.

The group expected “expected disabilities to be more mainstreamed in the economic update,” said Fox, including more long-term funding commitments.

She said that disability is only mentioned four times in Tuesday’s statement and seven times in the accompanying annexes.

Fox also noted disabilities are “often included in EDI statements but not always meaningfully considered outright.” 

Canada’s Housing Action Plan chapter of the economic statement, for example, lists people with disabilities as a marginalized group benefiting from more affordable housing projects.

“Affordable housing does not equal accessible housing,” Fox pointed out. She said disabled people continue to face access barriers.

Fox said her organization was also disappointed in the amount of sustainable funding allocated to disability programs. The group had hoped for specific funding allocations for the Canadian Disability Benefit, intended to ensure people with disabilities meet their basic needs. 

Fox said the benefit was “top of mind” prior to the statement, so its exclusion was “pretty disappointing.”

Existing resources available to people with disabilities have been under strain for a while now with increasing demand for services, according to Bruce Hamm, director of Carleton University’s Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities. 

Funding “has been sustainable at incremental levels, but it is not rising at the same pace as the increased number of students needing it,” he said.

The lack of specific attention given to persons with disabilities in the economic statement seems to depart from the growing demand for these services, Fox suggested. “More and more people are identifying as disabled,” she said. 

Fox noted the economic statement had its advantages, such as disabled people benefitting from general cost-of-living supports.

Advocates for improving winter mobility say disabled and aging Ottawa residents aren’t often considered in snow and ice removal policy. This inaccessibility leads to more people being unable to go outside.

The City of Ottawa Winter Maintenance Quality Standards, which turn 20 this year, prioritize roadways but there is little mention of accessibility for residents with mobility problems. The standards have been under review for years, but updates have been delayed.

Sandra Stec, a community leader in Centretown for the volunteer group Snow Moles, said the snow piled on the edges of sidewalks last winter made them unpassable.

“You couldn’t go down the street, even if you were in an emergency vehicle,” Stec said. She explained how people with mobility aids, or even strollers, would be forced to walk in the road due to sidewalk conditions.

She also said she’s seen a disparity with snow removal in residential versus suburban neighbourhoods. “They clear out the snow in Kanata far sooner than they would do here,” Stec said.

Snow Moles, a six-year-old project created by members of The Council on Aging and Age Friendly Ottawa, engages volunteers who share their winter navigation experiences with the City of Ottawa.

The council says snow and ice removal is often done haphazardly, leaving narrow crossing paths, uneven terrain and slippery conditions. Disabled and/or aging residents are left to devise their own strategies on how to keep safe.

For Jay Baldwin, a Carleton University student who uses a power chair, advocacy is a daily task in a world that doesn’t consider disabled voices. “People will ask if I ever get tired fighting for the rights of people like me,” said Baldwin, who minors in human rights and disability studies. “Do you think disabled people have an option? We can’t wake up one day and hope that other people will fight for us just as hard as we do – that just doesn’t happen,” they said.

Baldwin recounted a time in first year when they were stuck in the middle of the road because of the snow. “Four sweet angels of human beings stopped and saw that I was stuck. They had to lift my whole chair out of the snow,” Baldwin said. “This is a heavy chair. Without me in it it’s already 400 pounds.”

Uneven snow clearage on sidewalks also gives Baldwin a hard time. “I brace myself every time I go on the sidewalks for bumps. It’s hard to do that since my spine is fused,” they said. This leads to them staying indoors for most of the winter.

This has led to them forming a book club, “Disabled Babes Book Club” and a queer Facebook group “Disabled, Queer and Fabulous” for the sole purpose of “bringing people like myself and my community together,” Baldwin said.

On Carleton’s campus, a tunnel system can be a much-needed refuge from the snow. For Jessica Ursitti, it makes it easy for her to get to her classes in the winter, but off campus is a different story. Ursitti, who studies history at Carleton, uses a power chair.

Ice poses a significant challenge to Ursitti, especially since sidewalks aren’t typically cleared for it. “I can’t get around ice very much. My wheels just keep turning,” Ursitti said. “I have a lot of instances where people have to push me, which is really uncomfortable.”

Ursitti explained she needs a power chair in the wintertime since manual wheelchairs can easily get stuck. “Manual chairs are totally different, you can’t do snow at all,” said Ursitti “Slush gets stuck between the wheels on a manual chair, and then you’ll get it on your hands. It’s not doable.”

Another problem, she said, is when snow isn’t fully cleared off the sidewalk and accessibility ramps on OC Transpo buses can’t lower completely.

“I’ve had to ask people so many times to kick the snow out of the way. They do it, and they’re nice about it, but you don’t want to ask,” Ursitti said. “You just want to be able to do this stuff and not bother people — it’s annoying.”

Joel Harden, MPP for Ottawa Centre, has been fighting for a more accessible Ottawa. He said winter mobility conditions can mean “house arrest the moment we have a massive snowstorm.”

He said the ability of municipalities to raise money for city maintenance has been drastically cut because of new Ontario legislation adopted last year that waives development charges that otherwise would go to municipal funding, such as snow removal and sidewalk safety.

The City of Ottawa declined a request for comment.

The following photo sliders show what Ottawa streets look like with and without snow. To use the photo sliders, drag the white circle across the image to reveal the difference.