The City of Burnaby made a big announcement last week about funding for new sidewalks.
Council voted to increase spending on sidewalks by $10 million per year to cover the 40 per cent of local roads – 275 kilometres – without a sidewalk on one or both sides.
That’s great news. I wrote in May about the specific plan for South Burnaby along Marine Drive. You can read it here.
But in the planning for adding new sidewalks in areas that don’t have any, the city also needs to replace some really dumb, poorly planned sidewalks that are having a negative impact on people with mobility issues.
I’m talking about sidewalks that have things such as power poles or street lights installed right in the middle of the pavement – meaning people who use wheelchairs or scooters have great difficulty getting by them, if they can get by at all.
I’m sure, at the time, these power issues presented difficulties in installing sidewalks, but they should have been designed so people with mobility issues can easily get around them. It’s a reminder of how an entire group of people and their needs were cruelly ignored.
These sidewalks need to be redesigned and fixed – now.
But don’t take my word for it.
I got the idea for this blog from some recent tweets by @mssinenomine – whose account comes with this straight-fire line: “Make It Accessible Or Burn It Down.”
The account was remembering issues spotted in Burnaby along Canada Way in a series of tweets.
“When @tanyapazzy was driving me back and forth to the Summit in @modo_carcoop wheelchair accessible van, I was noticing how I would not be able to use the sidewalks on Canada Way in Burnaby.
“It’s like that for a very long stretch, if it wasn’t a giant pole it was the street light positioned right in the middle of the sidewalk with no room on either side for wheelchair or scooter users to get by.
“And it doesn’t seem to just be on Canada Way. It’s just that it’s a major street and so it particularly surprised me how bad the accessibility on it was. Really have a lot of work to do in Burnaby.”
When @tanyapazzy was driving me back and forth to the Summit in the @modo_carcoop wheelchair accessible van, I was noticing how I would not be able to use the sidewalks on Canada Way in Burnaby. pic.twitter.com/P8QKYQBAsY
— ♿️Make It Accessible Or Burn It Down (@mssinenomine) June 30, 2019
This is so embarrassing. I don’t want my city to be infamous for this.
The city also has a lot of work to do to ensure there are “curb cuts” – those little dips that allow wheelchairs and scooters to easily get on and off a sidewalk – on every sidewalk in the city.
Fixing the situation, of course, requires a lot of money and the city seems to have committed a lot to it so let’s get going.
After all, Burnaby is a rich place. It’s time our infrastructure reflected that.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
- With additional reporting by Kelvin Gawley
