"Access" Montreal

Réseau Accès Montréal is an initiative City of Montreal came out with to make their services more accessible.  In addition to points of service around the island, the City offers a phone hot line and online access.  Online access is an excellent idea...particularly in light of the fact that no one can actually drive anywhere with all the construction in the City.  One side point for the marketing department at the City of Montreal.  If you would like to truly capture the spirit of the City of Montreal.  I suggest that the website should just be the following picture:

 The website should then redirect you completely out of your way...I am thinking the site for a city in Indonesia.

Now I know the argument that  the City keeps on trying to improve public transport so more people take public transport and ease traffic.  Mayor Tremblay even proposed a new car tax that every car owner will have to pay as part of their car registration beginning in 2011.  Where the logic with the car tax breaks down is that at least with a tax on gasoline, you are penalizing the people using their car.  With the car tax, even if someone chooses to leave their car at home and take public transport, they will still be charged a car tax.  It makes no sense.  However, this is part of the Mayor's continuing complaint that the City needs to find new sources of revenue.  This coming from a City that had a surplus in 2010 and still plans to make budget cuts.  Mr. Mayor, how much money is enough for you?  Perhaps if you want a new source of revenue, you could grab a squeegee and head down to St Laurent street and go to work.  Maybe it will do you some good to speak with regular Montrealers, who have to actually live within their budget.  The reality is that people are still hurting from the economic crisis we have gone through, and the last thing they need is another tax, particularly when a majority of people do not see value in the taxes they are already paying.

As a person with a disability, I have to cringe every time a new tax is announced to help fund public transportation, a system that I am not able to use.  With the cost of gas, I would love to be able to go places by public transport, but, while some progress has been made, I am still not able to use my electric wheelchair throughout the public transportation network.  A friend of mine who has cerebal palsy and uses a power chair was recently in Montreal, and decided he would take the metro, since now there are five metro stations on the orange line with elevators.  My friend bought his ticket, and went down to the metro.  Once he arrived to the platform, he realized there was a gap between the platform and the metro car so he could not get his wheelchair on the mtro.  Now, in the world of logical people, there would be a portable ramp at each metro station so the person could get on the metro.  In the world of Ville de Montreal, there is a guy who rides around on the metro with a portable ramp.  When someone with a wheelchair needs to get on a metro, they have to give 1/2 hour notice so that the guy with the portable ramp can get to them.  He will then ride with them until their destination and then get them off the metro.  What happens if multiple people in wheelchairs need the metro at the same time?  If there is a conference for disabled people, that poor guy is going to go off on stress leave!!

When my friend asked why the person who sold him the ticket did not warn him about the 1/2 hour delay, the person told him that it was up to my friend to tell him that he needed the ramp.  Ummm...what was he going to do with the power chair?  Did the person selling the tickets think he would be cured by going into the metro.  Hallelujah....it's a miracle!!  Now we know why the STM costs so much...they are healing people.

So given the challenges with public transport, that leaves me driving downtown and parking.  Now in the best of time, that can be challenging for anyone, but then there is finding a spot where I can get my wheelchair out.  Over time, you learn where are the best places to spot.  Then you have to feed the meter.  In Ottawa, they have a program where people with disabilities can park for four hours for free, even though they have a more accessible public transport system.  It could be nice if Montreal would do that, particularly since our public transport is not accessible, but I understand, our City is poor, so I feed the meter. 

Back in January, I was down near Atwater and fed one of the meters reserved for disabled drivers on Ste Catherine in Westmount to go for lunch with a friend.  When we came back, just shy of the two hours, there was a ticket on the car and the meter was expired.  The next time I parked in that place, I realized that it does not necessarily recognize all the money you put in, which must have been what happened when I fed the meter to go eat lunch with a friend.  Have you ever noticed the meter never gives you too much time? Anyway, my friend wrote me a letter saying he had seen me feed the meter for two hours, and I sent in the plea saying I fed the meter and I guess it was defective and did not register, and noting that while usually a defective meter is not a valid defence, I was asking them to make an exception given that I am a disabled driver and do not exactly have many other options where to park.  The answer was that I had to come to court to plead my case.  My court date was last week.

The first thing I find interesting about going to municipal court is one would think that the reason to have multiple service points is to make it easier for people.  Like if someone lives in West End, have them go to a court near them.  Instead, my court case, although I live in West End, was in Anjou.  So I drove out to Anjou, go into court, and before the judge even arrives, the prosecutor asks why I did not pay my ticket.  So I basically tell him what was written on my ticket, and he tells me ok you can leave, we have no evidence and I will tell the judge to cancel the ticket.  Really?  We have gotten so desperate for money that we send cases to court in the hope the person does not show up and we can find them guilty.  Or maybe that is why the City needs more money...so they can find people who can read a plea and not waste resources bringing cases to court that have no merit.  Here is an idea.  When you go to court to fight a ticket, and you lose, you have to pay a $25 administration fee.  How about every time a ticket with no merit gets sent to court, if we take the time to show up and the ticket is thrown out, the City has to pay us $25?  To finance it, the City can charge a refund tax.  Every person who receives the $25 has to pay a $50 tax on their refund. (Yes..I realize that makes no sense...but doesn't that sound like something the City of Montreal would come up with.) 

Ville de Montreal...we have "Access" to your bank account.