My name is Kurtis Kelly and I am a resident of P.E.I. living with multiple disabilities. For years now the public transit system in Charlottetown has been a big help for people to get around town, but it has also been making promises that it hasn’t been keeping.
The transit system claims to be accessible but doesn’t advertise it on their buses, and I have noticed, through personal experience, that they can hardly even make that claim. After going up the ramp into the buses in town I find that I almost always have to ask people sitting up front to move so I can get to an accessible area to park my chair, and that there is very little room to do so. The buses are also frequently over-crowded making wait times for another bus to come by even longer.
As a member of the board of directors for the Council for People with Disabilities, I encourage the province to make the transit system available to the disabled community. It is clear that these buses were designed hastily, and that people with disabilities weren’t included in their layout design. As things stand, the buses on the Island are good for some people with some disabilities, but they weren’t designed to be used by everyone. Most people with disabilities are not even sure if they can take the bus as there are no stickers or signs that let them know that the buses have enough space and ramps for them to use. I also have a visual impairment and have noticed that the buses don’t have any systems in place to let people know which bus is pulling up to the stop, leaving people totally reliant upon the driver to let them know which bus they are getting on, and to let them know when they are at their destination.
The only other form of transport for people in wheelchairs in P.E.I. is Pat and the Elephant, and their resources are limited. The public bus would offer them with another form of transport that could make many lives easier and happier, by increasing convenience, independence, and social interactions. I don’t expect these problems to be fixed overnight, but taking the time to look into these issues and bringing people on to help make improvements would be a good start. People with disabilities are people first, and it is important to make sure that we have the same freedom as anyone else. I hope that this helps you to see our point, and that the transit system will do something to make the buses more accessible in the future.
Kurtis Kelly is a member of Ten Days for Transit, a community project advocating for an accessible and inclusive public transit system in P.E.I.
