We need to talk about accessibility for people with reduced mobility. On a scale from 1 to 10, how many of us are aware of the challenges and what seems like little details that prevent people with reduced mobility to enjoy every day tasks like going for a cup of coffee at the corner of the street or simply crossing the street safely at the corner?

My father, 75, needs a wheelchair when outside after a complicated cervical surgery in 2013 that left him with reduced mobility in his legs. On October 22, while running errands on the Plateau, he was hit from behind by a car somewhere on Avenue Mont-Royal. The driver did not stop (maybe did not see my father) and luckily my father and the wheelchair remained straight. But he did end up at the emergency for a couple of hours with a deep cut on a leg, a small cut on the head… and major repairs to his wheelchair were required. The thing is, he was at the corner of a street waiting for the light to turn green but… he was in the street, not on the sidewalk, because the sidewalks in that area are crowded and crooked. So technically, this incident was his fault… but what choices do people in wheelchairs sometimes have given the state of our sidewalks?

And yes, this happened in another borough, but it could’ve easily happened here in Peter-McGill. Below is a picture on the corner of Mansfield and Président-Kennedy. Look at the height between the sidewalk and the street. I’ve often seen people in wheelchairs circulating in the street in that area. Can we blame them? Continuing on the topic of sidewalks, what about when there’s construction nearby and signposts are installed right in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking the access to people in wheelchairs?