Taking action on access:

Accessibility committee not letting any moss grow under its feet — or wheels

By David Burke Reporter
dburke@whistlerquestion.com

Before he became a regular member of Whistler’s Accessibility Advisory Committee (AAC) earlier this year, Phil Chew sought assurances from Kevin McFarland, the RMOW parks planner facilitating the group’s formation, that his participation would lead to real, on-the-ground action.

“When I first joined I said I’d been to lots of these kinds of things and talk’s cheap,” Chew, the three-time Paralympic skier and current B.C. Disabled Alpine Ski Team coach, said on Monday (Dec. 11). “Kevin just said, ‘No Phil, I wouldn’t be involved in this if I didn’t think good things were going to get done with this.’
“And so far I think it’s a marvelous effort on the part of the municipality.” Indeed.

This week, at the committee’s insistence, municipal leaders launched a public education campaign exhorting residents and resort guests to “take a few steps toward accessibility.”

The campaign’s first ad, which appeared in both weekly news publications last week, includes a photo of Chew with his ski and outrigger next to a disabled parking sign next to the message, “I don’t see the disability… I see the person.”

The ads, which go on to state that those with a wide variety of disabilities “work and play as hard as you,” aim to drive home the message of accessibility to residents, business owners and resort guests.
The ultimate goal is to get everyone in the resort thinking about accessibility and inclusiveness and, by extension, looking for ways to improve access for those in wheelchairs, those with hearing and sight impairments and with learning disabilities.

“Everyone (on the committee) is looking at the whole valley to see what we can do to make things right,” Chew said. “If you take stock of everywhere in the valley and where the barriers are, if everyone’s involved, hopefully before 2010 we’ll have the most accessible communities in Canada and even the world.
“And it’s not just about people with disabilities. It’s about accessibility — the mother with a buggy and a bunch of groceries trying to get down the stairs. So you’ve got to think beyond the disabled. This is just about ways to do things better.”

And the committee is not dragging its feet. In accordance with a plan adopted at the Dec. 4 Council meeting, RMOW officials are moving ahead with improved signage, the first of which should be out in the next couple of months.

An accessibility map of Whistler Village and surrounding areas is already on the RMOW’s website (www.whistler.ca), and should be out in print form sometime in January, McFarland said.

Officials recently put out a request for proposals (RFP) for a consultant to do a comprehensive report on the accessibility of Whistler’s transit system, WAVE — not just about whether buses are wheelchair accessible but also about what can be done to make bus shelters more accessible and easier for the visually impaired to find and use, said Emma Dal Santo, RMOW Traffic Demand Management Coordinator.

“We’ve heard some discussions about talking signs,” she said. “For people who have visual difficulties, a sign can tell someone through their cell phone where the bus shelter is. So you could have a chip implanted at the shelter that would do that.

“We’re looking forward to having the study complete to see where we need to go.”
And Chew isn’t the only “talk-is-cheap” type on the committee who says he’s been impressed by what he sees as a “can-do” attitude on the issue.

Stacy Kohut, another three-time Paralympian who spends most of his life in a wheelchair, has been an outspoken critic on the topic of accessibility in Whistler ever since the Olympics and Paralympics were awarded to Vancouver-Whistler in 2003.

But he’s not sniping from the sidelines now. In fact, he’s one of the three individuals — along with Chew and Access Sea to Sky founder Emma Bayliffe — to be featured in the RMOW’s ad c ampaign.
“If you’re going to present a resort experience to the 21st century human being, it’s got to be universally accessible,” Kohut said. “It’s been a lot of coffees I’ve bought for a lot of members of this group, but if we’re not moving forward then I don’t want to be part of it. And I’m still part of it.

“It’s all been positive so far. We want to get some action happening rather than just the same old talk.”
Of the ad campaign, Kohut said, “We want to help educate people by putting a face and a name to the issue, and really, that’s what it’s about is how all the little things do add up to form a big picture.”
McFarland said that when the committee was first launched this past summer, officials knew they wanted to review accessibility both in the Village and on the transit system.

They also knew they wanted to bring together a committee with representatives who have a keen interest in the issue and wanted to get things done right away. In fact, McFarland said, the ad campaign is an idea that came directly from members of the committee.

Sometime in the first half of 2007, McFarland plans to approach Council about making the group a formal committee of Council.

“We wanted to get local resident expertise and we wanted to actually deliver on some projects to gain some credibility with Council,” he said.

“So far it’s been a nice prelude — Council members have already said they see the value and have asked me how they could talk to people and get more involved in the initiative.”
If and when it’s made a committee of Council, McFarland said he hopes the committee will have even broader representation — including at least one member from Whistler Blackcomb, which Kohut said he thinks is vital to any such group’s overall success.

He said in the past few months members of the committee have toured the Village several times looking for places where signs would be useful — anything from “wheelchair ramp 20 feet east” to ones pointing out the locations of fully accessible washrooms. Guests and residents should start to notice some of the new signs in the Village, Village North and Creekside as early as next month, McFarland said.
They’re also looking at technology such as that mentioned earlier by Dal Santo, making it easier for those with visual and hearing impairments to find their way.

“It seems we’re right at the crux of this technological leap forward,” McFarland said. “And in talking with CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind), Whistler is an interesting little hothouse flower because we’re a contained little international destination. If you want to test something, it’s not a bad place to test it.”

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