Challenging city’s DARTS policy

By Catherine O’Hara • REVIEW STAFF

A Freelton woman who was denied accessible transportation through D.A.R.T.S. (Disabled and Aged Regional Transportation System) because her visual impairment did not fit the City of Hamilton’s Accessible Transportation Services limited eligibility criteria has filed a claim with the Human Rights Tribunal against the accessible transit service.

Barbara McCarthy Large suffers from a form of retinitis pigmentosa, a congenital condition that has left her in the dark. Although legally blind, she is determined to maintain her independence and continue to support her family. Following an extensive job search, she found new employment at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind’s Hamilton office, located on Parkdale Avenue South, but was unable to secure affordable accessible transportation through D.A.R.T.S.

D.A.R.T.S. is a not-for-profit organization that provides transit services only to individuals who require the use of a wheelchair, walker or scooter, require kidney dialysis or have Alzheimer’s disease. Hamiltonians with disabilities that don’t fit the service’s limited eligibility criteria may qualify for the Taxi Scrip program instead. But the alternative program, noted McCarthy Large, is not an affordable option given the distance she must travel on an almost daily basis.

The Taxi Scrip program, according to the city’s public works department manager of accessible transportation services, Paul Thompson, offers eligible users a subsidy on taxi fare. “It’s a coupon system, in effect,” he said in a recent interview with the Review.

McCarthy Large, under the Taxi Scrip program, can purchase up to three books of coupons valued at $120 for $72. The coupons are used in lieu of cash. However, program recipients are limited on the number of booklets they can purchase.

For McCarthy Large, who must travel a total of 60 kilometres or so to get to and from her office, it is estimated that her round-trip cab fare will cost $80. The Freelton resident would swiftly use up her month’s supply of coupons using the Taxi Scrip program.

She appealed to D.A.R.T.S. to reconsider her application given her situation and circumstance, as well as the lack of public transit in Flamborough. No concessions were made.

Last month, McCarthy Large decided to pursue another avenue in hopes of finding a resolution to her problem: she filed a claim against the transportation service at the Human Rights Tribunal. The claim, she said, is a way to have her voice heard and effect change that would allow other visually impaired people in Hamilton the right to access affordable transportation.

Filing the claim was a decision that weighed heavily on McCarthy Large. “That’s a big ship to launch. Once you push that sucker out from shore, that’s not coming back,” she said. “I didn’t want to have to hit them with a big stick; I just really wanted them to see my point and the point of others that the system is wrong.”

According to the City of Hamilton’s director of Transit, Don Hull, “Transit is not, to date, aware of this complaint and cannot speculate as to the City’s response to such a complaint or the outcome of the Human Rights Tribunal process.”

Prior to 1997, D.A.R.T.S. used to provide transportation service to the visually impaired. Provincial funding cuts forced Hamilton-Wentworth regional council to re-evaluate the service’s eligibility criteria. Individuals who lost their sight also lost their seat on the bus.

“Somehow, someway, you magically decided that you were going to pick one group out of all the people you provided service to and kicked them right out of the equation,” said McCarthy Large of the region’s decision in 1997. “That’s where the discrimination factor is for me.”

Service enhancements to Hamilton’s Accessible Transportation Services are expected next year but are subject to council approval.

The Accessible Transportation Services department’s proposed changes come as sections of the provincial government’s Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act are phased in.

The proposed changes, including the implementation of an in-person functional assessment for all new Accessible Transportation Services applicants, would provide greater opportunity for individuals whose disabilities don’t fall under the service’s narrow eligibility criteria for access to services.