Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt

Today being another glorious summer day, Darrell and I did our favourite road trip in reverse for a change. Taking the Skytrain into downtown Vancouver to Waterfront Station. We enjoyed the easy-to-manoeuvre seawall path around Coal Harbour, a spot I love.

After an accessible pit stop at the Westin Bayshore, we cut across the West End to English Bay. While searching for an accessible route down to the seawall, I spotted a wheelchair parking space in a pay parking lot. Surely a wheelchair accessible route down to the beach would be in close proximity.

Upon further exploration, I discovered a fairly new looking curb cut to a fairly new path leading to…stairs.

Huh?

More searching did not reveal an accessible route. Am I on candid camera? What am I missing? Who is trying to stump the disabled?

No doubt the city’s bylaws require at least one wheelchair parking space in each parking lot.

Admittedly, non-wheelchair users are legally entitled to park in these spaces, provided they have a valid parking permit. These individuals might have heart conditions, arthritis or other impairments limiting mobility.

However, a sign indicating “No wheelchair access to beach” would inform wheelchair users that there is no pointing parking here, unless they are looking to spend their day in the parking lot.

Darrell and I backtracked a couple of blocks and headed down the bicycle path to the seawall. With cyclists whizzing by us, the odd one cursed for being in the cyclist lane. Seriously.

Accessibility 100 is a series of 100 easy-to-implement, free and inexpensive tips for improving accessibility for people with disabilities. This is a community project. Feel free to leave your comments, questions and ideas for future Accessibility 100 posts.

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