"The Next Stop is…Inaccessible. Inaccesible Stop." GTHA Transit System Maps Coded for Accessibility

This thesis bridges a vital gap in accessible transit information across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), by providing customized Google Maps whose transit stops are filtered according to accessibility. The current lack of such maps among the agencies was examined through three vital frameworks: the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People (CRPD), and Diller’s Civil Rights Model. After careful analysis, the AODA proved to have no requirements regarding the publishing of accessibility information. The AODA’s Transportation Standard is criticized by the Ontario Human Rights Code as violating human rights standards, and making no steps forward to positively integrate people with disabilities into society. The CRPD‘s requirements that every signing nation must provide accessible environments, and access to information about accessibility, goes further to include a directive to constantly continue improving accessibility. Diller’s Civil Rights Model sinks the case of the GTHA’s transit agencies even further: his model lays the responsibility to provide equal access on individual corporations themselves, as well as the government. It is clear, via these frameworks, that the GTHA’s transit agencies have not done enough to ensure equality of access to accessibility information, although they may meet the AODA’s general transportation requirements. It was a critical oversight of the AODA that no requirement for the communication of accessible transportation information was included. Pressure must be put on these transit agencies, as well as the provincial government, to modify their existing transit maps to include the accessibility of transit stops, or to create new maps that specifically highlight accessibility information. It is my intent that this research should make a positive contribution to this process.