The blind’s right to accessible transit service in Victoria, British Columbia, remains unresolved, due to inaction by BC Transit and the Victoria Regional Transit Commission.

The Canadian Federation of the Blind (CFB) has been in communication with BC Transit and the Victoria Regional Transit Commission since at least 2008, and with the BC Transit Accessible Transportation Advisory Committee since 2000, advocating for accessible transit for the blind. Letters we’ve received in return have cited the inaccessibility problems we speak of as “known at BC Transit” and “recurring”. But, to date, these inaccessibility problems have not been resolved.

In late 2010, since BC Transit bus travel for the blind and visually-impaired had not improved, CFB filed a Human Rights complaint, which in September 2012, unfortunately, was denied due to a time-line technicality.

BC Transit’s inability to implement change, to create an accessible public transit service for the benefit of blind riders, still stands. Our needs still stand as well.

What we need:

1. The ability to know when to exit a bus at a desired bus stop destination, by hearing audible annunciation of street intersections or bus stops, via automated stop annunciation.

2. The ability to access and successfully board one’s bus in the multi-bus stop zones.

The automated annunciation of intersections or stops is essential in making transit accessible to blind riders. Too often, when a blind rider asks the driver to let him/her know when the bus comes to a desired stop, the driver has forgotten, and that stop has gone by. For this reason, CFB insists that an automated annunciation system, which automatically calls out stops, be implemented to make transit accessible. Such automated annunciation systems are widely used in many North American cities. We were told back in 2008 that BC Transit was planning to install automated bus stop annunciation within 5 years, but to date, this has not come to fruition.

Multi-bus stop zones, such as the almost block-long bus stops downtown along Douglas Street, often have as many as three or four buses coming to the stop at a single time. If buses exit the multi-bus stop zone prior to pulling up to the front of the stop zone, then blind transit riders get left behind. A blind person cannot hear past the rear engine of the first bus to know if another bus has arrived, and, if one is told by a helpful sighted person that one’s bus has arrived down the zone, often the desired bus pulls away before one gets to it.

CFB suggested that all buses exit sequentially from the front of the multi-bus stop zone. That way a person knows to stand at the front of the multi-bus stop zone and knows that each bus will move forward to the front of the queue before exiting the bus stop zone. We have learned that this system works well elsewhere. This, and an equally acceptable “yellow-touch-zone” solution, was suggested to us by a BC Transit employee during a meeting in September 2011.

This multi-bus stop zone problem is well known to BC Transit and many blind transit riders are still being passed by, left stranded, waiting, hoping for the next bus. CFB was informed in writing by BC Transit, in August 2009, that BC Transit had a new policy, that drivers were required to exit from the front of the queue at these multi-bus stop zones. But, this policy was never implemented.

These two inaccessibility problems make the BC Transit service inaccessible for its blind and low vision riders.

Until these two specified accessibility necessities are implemented, CFB will continue to advocate for them. It’s the only right thing to do.