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In support of the wider campaign led by TTCRiders, Brad wrote a letter to Mayor Olivia Chow, TTC Chair Jamaal Myers, and Toronto City Councillors. Everyone across Ontario needs to pay attention to what is happening with the TTC’s “Family of Services” (FOS) model as it is being proposed all across the GTHA and wider Province.
If we can stop it here, we can stop it everywhere.
For more on the Family of Services model, see TTCRiders WheelTrans Cuts petition: https://www.ttcriders.ca/wheeltranscuts
Subject: Wheel-Trans and the Family of Services (FOS) Model at the TTC
2 December 2024
Dear Mayor Chow, TTC Chair Myers, and Toronto City Councillors
As the Executive Director of Disability Justice Network of Ontario and a resident of Ward 12, I write to you regarding our deep and lasting concerns regarding the TTC’s “Family of Services” (FOS) model. In opposition to this model, we would strongly encourage you to both invest in protecting door-to-door Wheel-Trans access and joining the wider movement around this Province to ensure accessible, affordable transit for all.
We know that the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act has failed to be implemented and materialized across this Province, practically. In the spirit of existing legislation, cities are encouraged to expand access, not to limit it. However, the Wheel-Trans 10-Year Strategy has consistently failed to uphold these values and the consequences are wide-ranging. While GTHA interconnectedness and regional transit accessibility becomes more complex and less straightforward for disabled riders, the TTC is serving as a model for how many transit agencies wish to move forward, which sadly, is in the wrong direction.
Through this plan and the FOS model, TTC plans to screen out 50% of current Wheel-Trans users from door-to-door services to meet “diversion targets” and leave disabled riders with an inconsistent, unsafe, inaccessible conventional system. As is obvious to any disabled rider, the TTC is not fully accessible and will not be up to AODA standards by 2025. This has been the reality I’ve experienced as a disabled rider, where injury, strain, failed accessibility features are a regular occurance.
Wheel-Trans users need choice and safety and the FOS model does not meet this standard and should not be made mandatory for any disabled Wheel-Trans riders.
It is also clear that this model reflects an effort, long before the current Mayoral administration, to cut costs. Forcing seniors and disabled people to use the conventional TTC just to save public money that should be invested in accessibility is a failure of public, social policy and deeply counter to the values of Torontonians. Such actions will result in riders:
getting stranded at bus stops: Instead of a single, door-to-door trip, the “Family of Services” involves multiple transfers. Conventional TTC might be accessible on paper, but in reality, TTC buses can be too crowded to board. FOS trips can also involve Wheel-Trans pick-ups at TTC stops halfway through a trip: People get stranded when their connecting TTC bus trip is more than 5 minutes late, the grace period that a Wheel-Trans vehicle will wait.
feeling isolated: Being forced to use conventional streetcars, subways, and buses will discourage people from using transit, resulting in isolation and a loss of independence.
taking more expensive transit trips: Because “Family of Services” trips involve multiple transfers between Wheel-Trans vehicles, buses, streetcars, and subways,, Wheel-Trans users have reported that some trips take longer than the 2-hour transfer window, and can cost two fares.
having unsafe transit trips: People with chronic health conditions and disabilities are concerned about the risk of being pushed or jostled on crowded subway platforms and slipping or falling while boarding crowded buses.
What’s further, as your own consultations have indicated, Wheel-Trans users do not support this policy. Public consultations held in April 2024 found that:
39% of Wheel-Trans users said they would never use the Family of Services.
61% of Wheel-Trans users felt that the TTC did not meet their accessibility requirements.
60% of Wheel-Trans users feel that crowding is an issue that affects people with disabilities.
Further to this: many “Conditional” Wheel-Trans users have the condition that they are eligible for Wheel-Trans door-to-door trips only in the peak periods. But because the 2023 TTC Operating Budget changed the crowding standard from the TTC’s official Service Standards, every hour has become rush hour. Service in the off-peak is currently planned for "standing room only,” and people who use wheelchairs and other assistive devices have reported that conventional buses are sometimes too crowded to get on. I have seen this in my own lived experience of attempting to use the TTC every week in this city.
Finally, as with so many of our social services, financial and other barriers are preventing Wheel-Trans users from engaging with appeals processes around their “Conditional” status: From gathering supporting documentation for the appeal requires booking appointments with specialists to paying for a doctor's notes and attendant supports—administrative appeals of these processes take time and money in an already incredibly costly city for disabled people. This is only more so for racialized, disabled riders who face the intersections of medical racism when navigating gathering information for these appeals processes.
The estimated cost of maintaining door-to-door service for all Wheel-Trans users in 2025 is $5.3 million. This is nothing compared to countless other expenses that are made by the City on policing, on mega-events, and much more. It is time for extended investment into accessibility on the TTC in all areas. It’s time to surpass the city’s failure to advance the AODA. It’s time to join disabled organizers to advocate for more from the Province.
As such, we join TTCRiders and others in the city to urge you to fully fund the cost of maintaining this critical service and to vote against making the “Family of Services” mandatory.
Respectfully,
Brad Evoy,
Executive Director, Disability Justice Network of Ontario