Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update
United for a Barrier-Free Society for All People with Disabilities
Web: https://www.aodaalliance.org
Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @aodaalliance
Facebook: www.facebook.com/aodaalliance/
March 27, 2024
Act Now, Before May 2, 2024
It is important to take action now, before May 2, 2024! Help keep people who live in Toronto or who visit Toronto safe from the serious dangers created by electric scooters (e-scooters). Three years ago, Toronto City Council wisely voted unanimously to ban people from riding e-scooters in public. Now, a new Toronto City Council is considering whether to change its mind. Its Infrastructure and Environment Committee will vote on this on May 2, 2024.
We need you to contact Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and members of Toronto City Council to insist that e-scooters remain banned. This Action Kit gives you everything you need to help. At the end is a list of the names, email addresses, Twitter handles and phone numbers of Mayor Chow and all members of City Council. It tells you why e-scooters are so dangerous. You can use these points as your key messages, as well as anything else you think would help.
Key Messages Why E-Scooters Must Remain Banned in Toronto
More and more, vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others are endangered by e-scooters racing silently at high speeds on sidewalks, roads and park paths around Ontario. They create twin dangers.
* A silent menace, e-scooters, appearing out of nowhere, are ridden on sidewalks in cities that ban them from being ridden on sidewalks. Uninsured, unlicensed, untrained, unhelmeted joy-riders racing at 20 kph endanger the safety of innocent pedestrians, especially people who cannot see them coming or who cannot quickly dodge them.
* Left strewn on sidewalks, e-scooters have been tripping hazards for blind people. They are an accessibility nightmare for wheelchair users.
There are news reports from around the world documenting very serious injuries that e-scooters have caused. Several major disability organizations, as well as several municipal accessibility advisory committees have called on city after city to not allow e-scooters and to enforce any ban on them that is in place. Toronto’s Accessibility Advisory Committee has pleaded with Toronto City Council three times in four years to say no to e-scooters, in 2020, 2021 and 2024.
E-scooter batteries have spontaneously caught fire. That is another safety danger.
Yet despite this, some Ontario cities like Ottawa allow e-scooters. Others, like Toronto, have not allowed them but are not effectively enforcing the ban on riding them in public.
Some people own their own e-scooters and ride them in public. There is nothing in place to stop stores from selling e-scooters to the public, even when it is illegal to ride them in public in most parts of Ontario. In some cities, people can also rent e-scooters.
Corporate lobbyists for e-scooter rental companies have kept up a feeding frenzy of lobbying city councils. They laugh all the way to the bank, while victims of e-scooter injuries sob all the way to their hospital’s over-crowded emergency ward.
It’s not good enough to just ban e-scooters from sidewalks. In every city that has banned e-scooters from sidewalks but allowed them on the roads, people still keep riding e-scooters on sidewalks. No city can afford to have a cop on every sidewalk to police those weak rules.
Toronto City staff will submit a report to Toronto City Council’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee by May 2, 2024, recommending what forms of micromobility to allow. Micromobility includes any kind of device smaller than a car that helps people get around. We support micromobility. Bikes are a fantastic form of micromobility, that are good for the environment, don’t go as fast as e-scooters, and are better all around. Other forms of micromobility can be good too. We oppose e-scooters. With other forms of micromobility in place we don’t need e-scooters!
Let Mayor Chow and Toronto City Council members know that this issue of safety and accessibility matters to you! Press them to say no to e-scooters. Leave Toronto’s ban on e-scooters in place. Don’t allow e-scooters anywhere in public on roads, sidewalks or anywhere else. Don’t allow them whether they are rented or privately owned. Don’t allow Toronto to create this new dangerous disability barrier. E-scooters will make our society even more inaccessible for Ontarians with disabilities.
We are talking about the motorized kick-style scooters that a person stands on to ride. We of course seek no restrictions on mobility assistance devices for people with disabilities, such as the very different powered scooters on which a person sits when riding.
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act requires Ontario to become accessible to people with disabilities by 2025. Creating new barriers flies in the face of that.
Some might claim that e-scooters are inevitable, so Toronto might as well just regulate them. Yet they are only inevitable if we let them be inevitable. Moreover, regulating them is much harder than banning them. It is easier for police to prove that someone rode an e-scooter in public when that is forbidden. It is much harder for police to prove that the e-scooter was a prohibited size or weight or that it exceeded a permissible speed.
Some might suggest that e-scooters promote equity for poor people. Yet equity must never come at the price of endangering safety and accessibility for vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others, including poor people.
Some might say e-scooters should be allowed on bike paths. Yet in Toronto, that would allow e-scooters on a growing number of sidewalks, endangering vulnerable pedestrians. This is because Toronto is unfortunately building new bike paths on sidewalks. This widely watched video shows that Toronto’s building bike paths on sidewalks endangers people with disabilities.
E-scooter corporate lobbyists claim that there’s new technology to avoid all the dangers. It’s simply not true. E-scooter corporate lobbyists have been making this claim for years. Moreover, privately owned e-scooters don’t include any of that unproven or non-existent technology.
Some might claim that some other Ontario cities are allowing e-scooters, so why not Toronto? Yet those other cities have wrongly created new dangers for vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors and others. They too often have disregarded pleas from Ontarians with disabilities not to allow e-scooters. Toronto should not make the same mistake. Moreover, at least some of those cities have wrongly allowed e-scooter rental companies to take part in the enforcement of the city’s e-scooter rules and regulations. That is very inappropriate. The private e-scooter rental companies are in a hopeless conflict of interest.
Toronto must battle climate change. But we don’t need e-scooters for that, lots of other forms of micromobility, like bikes, will do the job. E-scooters add no benefits to them, but create serious new dangers.
What Else You Can Do to Help
Spread the word about this issue. Post this Action Kit on your website and social media.
Urge friends and family members to tell Toronto City Council members and Mayor Olivia Chow to make the “No E-Scooters Pledge!”
Let us know what responses you get from Mayor Chow or City Council members. Email us at aodafeedback@gmail.com
Learn more about this issue. Visit the AODA Alliance website’s e-scooter page!
Contact Information for Members of Toronto City Council
Mayor Olivia Chow
Email: mayor_chow@toronto.ca
Twitter @oliviachow
Phone 416-397-CITY (2489)
Ward 1 Councillor Vincent Crisanti
Email: Councillor_Crisanti@toronto.ca
Twitter @vcrisanti
Phone 416-397-9255
Ward 2 Councillor Stephen Holyday
Email: councillor_holyday@toronto.ca
Twitter @stephenholyday
Phone 416-392-4002
Ward 3 Councillor Amber Morley
Email: Councillor_Morley@toronto.ca
Twitter @CllrAmberMorley
Phone 416-397-9273
Ward 4 Councillor Gord Perks
Email: councillor_perks@toronto.ca
Twitter @GordPerks
Phone 416-392-7919
Ward 5 Councillor Frances Nunziata
Email: councillor_nunziata@toronto.ca
Twitter @FrancesNunziata
Phone 416-392-4091
Ward 6 Councillor James Pasternak
Email: councillor_pasternak@toronto.ca
Twitter @PasternakTO
Phone 416-392-1371
Ward 7 Councillor Anthony Perruzza
Email: councillor_perruzza@toronto.ca
Twitter @PerruzzaTO
Phone 416-338-5335
Ward 8 Councillor Mike Colle
Email: councillor_colle8@toronto.ca
Twitter @MikeColleTO
Phone 416-338-2500
Ward 9 Councillor Alejandra Bravo
Email: Councillor_Bravo@toronto.ca
Twitter @BravoDavenport
Phone 416-392-7012
Ward 10 Councillor Ausma Malik
Email: Councillor_Malik@toronto.ca
Twitter @Ausmalik
Phone 416-392-4044
Ward 11 Councillor Dianne Saxe
Email: Councillor_Saxe@toronto.ca
Twitter @DianneSaxe
Phone 416-392-4009
Ward 12 Councillor Josh Matlow
Email: councillor_matlow@toronto.ca
Twitter @JoshMatlow
Phone 416-392-7906
Ward 13 Councillor Chris Moise
Email: Councillor_Moise@toronto.ca
Phone 416-392-7903
Ward 14 Councillor Paula Fletcher
Email: councillor_fletcher@toronto.ca
Twitter @PaulaFletcherTO
Phone 416-392-4060
Ward 15 Councillor Jaye Robinson
Email: councillor_robinson@toronto.ca
Twitter @JayeRobinson
Phone 416-395-6408
Ward 16 Councillor Jon Burnside
Email: Councillor_Burnside@toronto.ca
Twitter @JonBurnside_DVE
Phone 416-397-9256
Ward 17 Councillor Shelley Carroll
Email: councillor_carroll@toronto.ca
Twitter @ShelleyCarroll
Phone 416-338-2650
Ward 18 Councillor Lily Cheng
Email: Councillor_Cheng@toronto.ca
Twitter @LilyCheng
Phone 416-392-0210
Ward 19 Councillor Brad Bradford
Email: councillor_bradford@toronto.ca
Twitter @BradMBradford
Phone 416-338-2755
Ward 20 Councillor Parthi Kandavel
Email: Councillor_Kandavel@toronto.ca
Phone 416-392-4052
Ward 21 Councillor Michael Thompson
Email: councillor_thompson@toronto.ca
Twitter @Thompson_37
Phone 416-397-9274
Ward 22 Councillor Nick Mantas
Email: Councillor_Mantas@toronto.ca
Twitter @nickmantas_
Phone 416-392-1374
Ward 23 Councillor Jamaal Myers
Email: Councillor_Myers@toronto.ca
Twitter @CllrJamaalMyers
Phone 416-338-2858
Ward 24 Councillor Paul Ainslie
Email: councillor_ainslie@toronto.ca
Twitter @Ainslie_Ward24
Phone 416-392-4008
Ward 25 Councillor Jennifer McKelvie
Email: councillor_mckelvie@toronto.ca
Twitter @McKelvieTO
Phone 416-338-3771
