The Program to equip Montreal’s metro stations with elevators is now underway. What originally started in the new stations in Laval is being brought over to the island of Montreal. Firstly the major stations such as Lionel-Groulx will be addressed. I remember a couple years back when the Laval stations just opened, there were many who criticized the fact that the three stations had elevators. Where will people with reduced mobility go once they enter the station they asked. Well here is the answer, it only took a few more years but now people with reduced mobility will soon be able to travel between Laval and Montreal underground. This is good news as well for cyclists who use the system. There is nothing worse than having to trudge a bike through a crowded stair case or escalator. Now if only there were elevators in my local station and the destination.
Elevator in subway
Read more articles by Michael Dunkelman
13 comments
Good, comme ça les gens vont pouvoir venir dropper encore plus d’handicapés pour leur faire quêter de l’argent, :(
Amazing how attitudes differ from place to place. In Vancouver, every metro station is wheelchair accessible. EVERY station has an elevator. Pretty much every building is accessible too. Not doing it would be offensive to us.
In response to the last post by jasmin: it is kinda hard to get a job when you can’t get to the building, or better yet, can’t get IN the building once you get to the doorstep. Even if they do get there, past the doorstep, then they have to deal with attitude from people like you.
In Vancouver, handicapped people can do pretty anything that non-handicapped people do, even become mayor like quadriplegic businessman Sam Sullivan:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=VCo4iSssnvM
A city that makes ALL of it’s citizens welcome means a city that is guaranteed to make YOU welcome.
In Vienna, where I’ve lived for many years, all 84 metro stations were equipped with elevators in a span of a few years.
Primarily intended to provide access for handicapped people, it is also very useful for people with strollers, heavy baggage or lots of shopping items and I found myself regularly using them just for faster access – as it connects directly street to train boardwalk (no turnstiles to pass), you do not have to walk all the way down the long corridors anymore!
Now (in time of economic crisis) it should be the time to invest in our infrastructure
Parents with small children that need strollers will find this a benefit, too. I can’t tell you how many broken escalators I’ve had to carry a stroller up.
Jasmin, c’est très méchant, et pas mal con.
Il y a plein de personnes handicapés qui se déplacent pour travailler, étudier ou participer à la société autrement.
Le triste phénomène d’exploiteurs de mendiants handicapés ne dépend pas de la présence d’ascenseurs dans le métro.
This is long overdue. Especially… for cyclists with a bit of a disability (arthritis in my case) that can make it hard for us to lift our bicycles over barricades and up métro stairs. But seriously, it is an important accessibility issue for a lot of people. Amsterdam changed all its trams for models easily accessible to disabled people and parents with small children in tow.
Hope major métros includes Jean-Talon…
It’s a step in the right direction, but there’s a long way to go to make the metro system more accessible. It’s painful to watch people with limited mobility (the weak, the injured, the burdened, people with strollers) climbing the stairs in stations that don’t even have escalators.
The original design reflected the thinking of the time, which was that below a certain height, it was stairs; above that, it was escalators. And Jean-Talon won’t be amont the first 5, which are Côte-Vertu, Lionel-Groulx, Bonaventure, Berri-UQAM, and Henri-Bourrassa.
Things have indeed changed, but don’t forget that this is a lot of money. And in fact, the STM had decided not to install elevators in consultation with handicap advocates who said, at the time, that it was better to put the limited funds into the current system of adapted transport rather than retrofit stations with elevators.
See http://www.ledevoir.com/2007/06/12/147067.html for a good overview of elevators in the métro.
Montreal is a difficult city for people with limited mobility for many reasons, but to a large extent this is due to the reality that we live in a much more challenging environment than Vancouver, Vienna, or Amsterdam. None of these cities have to deal with the snow removal issues or temperatures which are a ‘given’ here. Montreal will never be a wheel-chair paradise like many cities on the West Coast.
Certainly things can be improved, and they should be, but no matter how much we improve the ‘built environment’ in our metro stations and elsewhere that will not change the fact that for a good four months out of the year it is basically impossible for someone with limited mobility to get around independently in this city. And no amount of effort on anyone’s part is going to change that.
The adapted transport provided by the STM is a more realistic solution to the transportation needs of this particular population. As Tristou pointed out, we only have limited resources: leaving equity issues aside, better to spend it in the most efficient and effective way possible. The cost of retrofitting one metro station with an elevator would buy quite a few buses!
sorry to be a nitpicker, but is that photo supposed to be upside down? Its doing my head in
“In response to the last post by jasmin: it is kinda hard to get a job when you can’t get to the building, or better yet, can’t get IN the building once you get to the doorstep. Even if they do get there, past the doorstep, then they have to deal with attitude from people like you.”
Hey, c’est pas moi qui vient domper un handicapé à chaque jour pour le faire quêter de l’argent.
Désolé mais ça existe, les gens qui se font laisser là le font pas par choix généralement mais sont utilisés par leur famille/entourage comme source de revenu.
J’ai vu ce reportage à RDI qui montrait justement ces handicapés qui quêtent dans le métro et explicait justement comment ils sont laissés là, à eux même, pendant des heures sans bouffe et eau.
Dommage que la dénonciation par l’ironie et l’humour t’as échappé, tu devrais essayer de pas toujours tout prendre au premier degré.
“Jasmin, c’est très méchant, et pas mal con. ”
Je pense que t’as pas compris que je dénoncais justement ceux qui abusent justement des handicapés en les faisant quêter.
C’est totalement idiot d’adapter les bâtisses aux handicapés; ça devrait plutôt être les handicappés qui s’adaptent au monde, et ils n’ont aucune excuse pour ne pas le faire.
La chaise roulante «Ibot» (http://www.ibotnow.com/) permet justement de monter les escaliers et de passer partout où un piéton peut le faire.
Beaucoup de compagnies d’assurances préfèrent payer pour une telle chaise roulante plutôt que de payer pour modifier une maison pour accommoder une chaise roulante; très souvent ça coûte moins cher, et ça permet aux handicapés d’être autonomes ailleurs que chez-eux.
I fail to see how these elevators will be useful to people in wheelchairs. You can’t roll a wheelchair on or off a metro car without the front wheels falling into the gap.
I wish that they would put elevators in our metro system. I would love to go downtown once in a while. I am sixty two years old and my knee’s are not working as well as they used to. The thought of climbing all those stairs one at a time takes all the pleasure out of going downtown. I am sore and tired by the time I get to my destination. People with heart problems, lung problems, leg problems, knee problems, foot problems, weight problems, general weakness due to age or God forbid Chemo all have a really hard time on those stairs. When I get to a station and see the escalators not working which is frequently the case I just want to cry. I am sure that at certain stations that are very deep, well I would just turn around and go home. It is not just people in wheelchairs who desperately need elevators in our metro. My two cents worth.