A barrier-free Ontario was the purpose of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), unanimously passed by MPPs in 2005.
It’s been a busy period for the Village of South River as it removes barriers to improve the lives of people facing accessibility obstacles.
The village initiated three major projects over the last year and is in various stages this fall of seeing them completed. Perhaps the most visible project is the use of tactile sidewalks.
Don McArthur, the village’s clerk-administrator, said the tactile sidewalks are steel-pebbled plates at intersections.
McArthur said they are designed to let a visually impaired person know the sidewalk is about to end.
"Sometimes the plates are made of rubber but ours are made of steel,” McArthur said. “They have small knobs that stick out that a foot will pick up or someone with a cane. This will alert the person who is visually impaired that they are approaching an intersection and are about to step on the road.”
South River’s tactile sidewalks are about one square metre in size and painted a bright yellow.
McArthur said the municipality, like many others, has been installing the tactile sidewalks as part of its water main replacement projects.
He said since the water main projects automatically called for the rehabilitation of the roads and sidewalks after the underground infrastructure was installed, the village installed the tactile sidewalks as the last part of the work.
And since the steel plates were going to be installed, McArthur said the sidewalks were also sloped down next to the road so a visually impaired person or someone on a scooter or wheelchair could smoothly move from the sidewalk onto the road without having to step off a curb.
“So, the ability to transition from the road to the sidewalk or sidewalk to the road is an important feature,” McArthur said.
There are about 30 tactile sidewalks spread across the village.
Quite a few are located on Eagle Lake Road and the several streets it intersects with like Ottawa Avenue, Lincoln Avenue, Johnston Drive and Marie Street.
A set of four plates is found at the intersection of Highway 124 and Ottawa Avenue and more at Ottawa Avenue and Broadway Street as well as the intersection at Cedar Court and Ottawa Avenue.
McArthur said there are a lot of sidewalks in South River and as more rehabilitative work is done, he said residents can expect the installation of more tactile sidewalks.
Another project that will make accessibility easier for people is a new trail that cuts through a bush area and leads people to the very popular Tom Thomson Park.
The trail is three metres wide and will easily accommodate people on wheelchairs and scooters.
However, for now, the trail has a hard-packed surface and still needs to have asphalt applied to smooth out the surface.
McArthur said because it’s late in the year, this work won’t be done until next year but in the meantime, the trail can accommodate walkers and joggers. Tom Thomson Park is on Ottawa Avenue and the section near the park has no sidewalks.
McArthur said it’s not feasible to install sidewalks in this particular area because in some sections the road is next to privately-owned land.
This section of Ottawa Avenue is heavily travelled because it leads to the industrial area and consequently has a lot of truck and logging traffic on it.
Additionally, it’s an access point to Algonquin Park meaning a great number of tourists use the roadway.
“So, it was best to deviate around this,” McArthur said explaining the rationale for building a trail to the park.
“It’s much safer and about 600 metres long. At its end, you just cross Ottawa Avenue and into the park."
The third significant project involves the former train station on Ottawa Avenue.
The building hasn’t been used for passenger service for years and until recently was going to be repurposed as a small museum to reflect South River’s history. This was a slow-moving project.
However, when the Ontario Government announced that it planned to bring rail passenger service back to northern Ontario and South River was a major stop, work on the old station picked up steam.
McArthur said the entire station will be fully accessible.
“The doorways are wider, there is a level entrance coming from the parking lot where it’s all one grade and there is a fully accessible washroom,” he said.
Even during the heydays of train travel the station never had a washroom. The single washroom will serve men and women and includes a change table.
When fully complete, the train station will accommodate passenger train customers and also house the museum. The cost for the train station work is $450,000.
But the village only has to cover 18 per cent since the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation and FedNor are picking up the lion’s share of the cost.
McArthur said the municipality has also added one more accessible parking spot at the town hall office and put more accessible parking spots through the main core of the community along Ottawa Avenue.
Rocco Frangione is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with Almaguin News. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
