By Emma Kivisild
When you live in Prince Rupert, Terrace is the Big Smoke. I mean, they are just bigger. They have a Canadian Tire, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Dairy Queen. When stores like Reitman’s pull out of our town, they stay open in Terrace. Terrace has Riverboat Days and ski hills close by. They have everything.
I use a wheelchair, though. I see things through a slightly different lens. Things like accessibility, and walkable/rollable streets mean a lot to me. Urban design is of personal importance. For me, streets and sidewalks are do or die. That’s how I see the Big Smoke.
Actually, streets and sidewalks are do or die for everybody. In Prince Rupert, many pedestrians have recently been killed (read here and here) or injured by drivers who didn’t notice them. Urban design could’ve prevented such tragedies.
Well designed cities accommodate pedestrians AND cars AND trucks AND bikes AND wheelchairs. First, good design can prevent fatal crashes, which are not always caused by irresponsible people. Also, good design accommodates the 8-year-old riding to school, the senior buying milk, the disabled person going out for their birthday, plus the person in the truck picking up groceries for the week .
Good design is not too much to ask. We live here. We pay taxes. We can design this. It’s not crazy. People in Vancouver have signed on to plans for “Complete Streets”. They changed the road in front of the hospital so everyone can use it (see here).
Here’s an example of a little town’s fight for streets. Check out Clearwater, BC and how they’ve applied their Complete Sreets policy.
My story,
In November 2019, I had to go to Terrace for a medical appointment. They are bigger, remember? They have specialists. So off I went in the “Health bus.”
My attendant and I were dropped off at Mills Memorial Hospital. First, I was going to take my wheelchair to Terrace’s medical equipment “store”. We don’t have one of those stores in Prince Rupert
I had confidence that I would be able to complete my errands. In 2009, Terrace signed on to an “Active Transportation Plan“, which I assumed would mean that I could travel easily in my wheelchair in Terrace. Me and my attendant, rolling and walking. We are active.
Ha! Our only possible route to the store involved crossing a major thoroughfare, travelling next to speeding cars, being careful to stay on the sidewalk. It was frightening. I‘m from Prince Rupert, I know about the interaction of speeding cars and people moving slowly.
What about other active transportation users? I wondered. It seemed impossible to be the 8-year-old cycling to school in Terrace, negotiating 4 lane roads and overpasses and train tracks.
Photo: Terrace Standard
On November 12, in fact, 45 cyclists and supporters, many of them children, attended Terrace city council to remind councillors that Terrace had passed the Active Transportation Plan 10 years before. The activists were following an initiative in June from Grade 9 students at Skeena Middle School about cycling safety. They asked for a task force to look at safer transportation in the city.
“We really encouraged the city to go out and make the Active Transportation Plan plan a living document,“ parent Amy Klepetar told the Terrace Standard.
The mayor (Carol Leclerc) acknowledged that most of the recommendations in the plan have yet to be implemented. That was clear to me as I hurried across the giant road.
We eventually got to the wheelchair shop, only to find out that the store could not examine my wheelchair. No problem, I thought. I will take a wheelchair taxi to my hotel while I wait until tomorrow to have my medical examination.
Ha ha ha.
“Wheelchair taxis in Terrace? I phoned and asked about them when I got home to Prince Rupert. I found out that Terrace has only one wheelchair taxi with one driver, and it only operates on weekdays from 8 AM to 4 PM. Apparently, people in wheelchairs don’t do anything on weekends or in the evenings. Apparently, we have no friends. Active transportation might have nothing to do with us.”
The wheelchair taxi of Terrace was out of commission on that day. I didn’t get any real explanation for this. So off we went walking and rolling to the hotel. This time it involved going over overpasses, crossing highways. The traffic was noisy, and I sang to myself in a loud voice as we went.
Quite possibly, you do not understand my situation in this story. I was completely trapped. No amount of money, no amount of generosity from a friend with a truck or car, was going to help me get to the hotel. I was using an electric wheelchair, and the only vehicle that could take me would be the “Handy Dart”, which has to be booked a day in advance .
I was in a bad situation there. Let’s think about the other travelers I have mentioned–bicyclists, walker users, and so on—how do they negotiate Terrace? The city‘s plan is to use design, signage, and education to build links and communication and transform infrastructure. However, the mayor confesses that they have done very little so far, implementing what she calls “the low hanging fruit” of the Active Transportation Plan. The council has added more bike racks, for instance.
As the Terrace Standard reported, though, bicycle riders aren’t going to let council off the hook, and have seized active transportation by the horns. They have two wheels, and I have six, but we’re on the same team. I have hope.
The next day, we Handi Darted to the hospital. Once finished with the hospital, we embarked again, walking and rolling, this time in the pouring November rain, looking for food. Never been so excited to see A&W.
Another cross county trek and the health bus beckoned.
I was glad to get back to my teeny tiny town. Here, I am able to use a wheelchair taxi in the evening or on the weekends. This enables me to participate in my city!
If we had Canadian Tire, I could go there on a Saturday.
With information from an article by Brittany Gervais in the Terrace Standard, Terrace residents take council to task for safer active transportation