Jim Hole ran into a big problem when he went to the office Friday in his wheelchair: stairs.
Hole had agreed to spend a day in a wheelchair to raise awareness of accessibility issues. It's been a real eye-opener, he says. Cracks and pits in the sidewalk become massive hazards in the chair, and most doors become walls.
"You really have to plan ahead because it takes a heck of a lot longer to get going."
But barely two hours into the challenge, he hit an insurmountable obstacle — he had no way to get to his upstairs office. The 1970s-era building had no elevator, and he couldn't get up the stairs in the chair.
So he cheated. "I had to walk up the stairs to the top," he says, laughing. "Zachary [the challenge organizer] said he'd give me some leeway for the first year."
Chair awareness
Hole was one of 10 Albertans to participate in the province's first-ever Chair-Leaders Enabling Access event on Friday. The event, run by the Canadian Paraplegic Association of Alberta, used local celebrities like Hole and former Edmonton city councillor Michael Phair to raise money for and awareness of access issues in the Edmonton area.
These are people with the power to make Edmonton more accessible to wheelchair users, says event organizer Zachary Weeks. "It's also planning for the future," he notes; aging boomers will face the same issues as chair-users in the years ahead.
Edmonton has done a reasonably good job of accommodating wheelchair users, Weeks says, but still has a lot of work to do. He often runs into sidewalks without curb-cuts, for example, which makes it impossible for him to cross the street. "There's been times when I get to the end of the sidewalk and I have to turn around, go all the way back, find a driveway and head out onto the road."
St. Albert has good trails and curb-cuts, says Teren Clarke, city resident and the association's executive director, but its homes aren't wheelchair-friendly. Most are expensive and multi-storey, requiring users to either spend at least $30,000 adapting them or to pull up stakes and leave.
"All of us will face mobility challenges in the future," Clarke says, "and these large multi-level homes are completely inappropriate for us to age in place."
Lessons at the wheel
Edmonton-St. Albert MP Brent Rathgeber took part in a similar event on Parliament Hill Wednesday. It was an interesting experience, he says, especially since he could have ended up in a wheelchair after a car crash in 1998.
"It's very physically demanding wheeling a chair for 10 hours," he says. "You have to reorganize your life to account for your mobility deficiency."
Ten-second walks out of the House of Commons became 10-minute waits for the elevator, and handling soup became an ordeal.
Parliament Hill was fully accessible, Rathgeber found, but just barely — most doors were just a few centimetres wider than his chair. "I scraped my knuckles a number of times."
Hole says he had no problems getting around his greenhouse or town, but found it took a lot longer. He also had issues with sidewalk maintenance. Cracks were major hazards, he says, with one spinning him completely around. "It's a pretty rough ride going across some spots."
Clarke says she hopes homebuilders would make St. Albert homes more accessible so chair-users could stay in town. She also hoped that Hole's time in a wheelchair would influence his new greenhouse.
Hole says the Enjoy Centre will be fully wheelchair-accessible. "It's critical for any new construction."
