Accessibility For Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

Please tell the Ontario Government if you support the AODA Alliance's brief on the final proposed transportation accessibility standard...

April 8, 2009

SUMMARY

The AODA Alliance has finalized and submitted its brief to the Ontario
Government on the final proposed Transportation Accessibility Standard.
(Text of this brief set out below.)

You now have an important opportunity to help convince the Ontario
Government to enact a strong, effective Transportation Accessibility
Standard. It is easy for you to help. It would take you very little
time.

Please tell the Ontario Government if you support the AODA Alliance's
brief on the Transportation Accessibility Standard. All you need to do
is send a quick email to:
accessibility@css.gov.on.ca

It would be great if you could say you endorse the AODA Alliance's April
8, 2009 brief on the proposed Transportation Accessibility Standard. Of
course, it would also be wonderful if you had the time to give the
Government additional suggestions of your own on how to improve the
final proposed Transportation Accessibility Standard which the
Transportation Standards Development Committee submitted to the
Government. You can find the text of the final proposed Transportation
Accessibility Standard at:
http://www.aodaalliance.org/strong-effective-aoda/03172009.asp

Encourage others to voice their support for our brief. We welcome
endorsements of our brief, whether from organizations and from
individuals. If you don't want to use email, you can also contact the
Government at:

Mail: Accessibility Directorate of Ontario
Outreach and Compliance Branch
Ministry of Community and Social Services
777 Bay Street, Suite 601
Toronto ON Canada
M7A 2J4

Telephone: 416-314-0529
TTY: 416-326-0148 / Toll-free: 1-888-335-6611
Fax: 416-326-9725

To make it easier to review the brief, we provide a summary of our
position in the introduction. In the appendix at the end, we list in one
place all of our recommendations.

We thank those who took the time to review our draft brief, circulated
earlier, and to offer us feedback. Our final brief, set out below,
includes everything that was in our draft brief. It also includes two
added recommendations:

* Recommendation 16(b) to require a public transit provider to provide
alternative accessible transportation to passengers with disabilities if
important accessibility equipment on the conventional transit system
(such as a subway station elevator) is inoperative for more than a
minimal period of time.

* Recommendation 47: to require that public transit authorities develop
and make public a multi-year transit accessibility plan showing how and
by when they will make their transit services fully-accessible.

Our draft brief, circulated earlier, is available at:
http://www.aodaalliance.org/strong-effective-aoda/03302009.asp

If you would like a copy of our brief in MS Word format, send your
request to: aodafeedback@rogers.com

Thank you for considering giving your support to our call for a strong,
effective Transportation Accessibility Standard.

David Lepofsky Chair, AODA Alliance