Category: Awareness

Editor’s Note: Chris and Marie Stark are long-time advocates for increased access, universal design and true inclusion for persons who are blind. They live in Ottawa, Ontario.

“It’s 6:30 a.m. Please hurry,” the talking alarm clock tells us. Picking up the bedside phone, we disarm the home alarm system and are told that the internal temperature is 18 degrees and outside it’s minus ten. We figure it is much too cold to get out of bed, but a couple of telephone keystrokes later, the furnace speaks through the phone and tells us it is now set to 21 degrees and rumbles into life.

Welcome to another day in the Stark household.

When our children left the nest, and we decided to purchase a newly built bungalow in an adult life style community, our desire to live independently was our guiding principle. We were seeking a level of integration where technology would enhance our abilities and would contribute to our quality of life. In our dream home, we wanted to obtain an array of services that met our needs, and that we could use efficiently, and at the same cost as our sighted neighbours.

We wanted to know about smart house design techniques such as programmable thermostats, environmental and security equipment that can be operated without visual prompts, audio house locators, intercoms and phones whose features were not screen dependent, appliances with accessibility features, lighting considerations, and other cost effective design hints for persons who are blind.

We were disappointed in the lack of information available from the building industry about the choices that could help homeowners who are blind. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, for example, did not have any relevant information for people who have disabilities, besides that for people who use wheelchairs. Organizations for the blind, like the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), had no experience or advice to offer in this area.

This lack of information made us feel like we were experimenters–on our own, once again.

One of our biggest problems was obtaining information such as operating manuals, satellite or cable channel guides and feature sheets in formats we could read. We need electronic information files without columns, graphics and charts. Compared to braille, or printing costs, for that matter, meeting our customer service need for information is simple, within the capability of most companies, and relatively inexpensive.

We set out to equip our new house with smart home technology, without the accessibility barriers of visual only on-screen programming and menus, or keypads we cannot feel.

We did lots of research and talked to many persons who are blind, in search of solutions to annoying barriers. We thought that the simpler the solution, the more effective and usable it would be. Solutions that work would be a mix of traditional devices and experimental technology, together with ingenuity. We did find some solutions, but often at a higher cost than our neighbours.

The outside lights are now integrated into our talking smart home security system. We can program them ourselves, so they are turned on and off at the appropriate times, according to changes in daylight or dark.

We considered using a home sound emitting locator device to help us find our house, but opted for a low-tech solution. A wind chime provides confirmation that our guide dogs are on the right track.

The integrated automatic garage door opening system gives us quick access to the garage, where we dry our guide dogs and clean the mud off them before entering the house.

A front door voice intercom allows us to check who has rung the doorbell, from speakers located in key places within our home. This system also announces when a door or window is opened, and which one. Being surprised in your own home, or having to open a door without knowing who is there, are legitimate security concerns. Looking through the window or peephole to see who is there is something most homeowners do automatically. We can now also choose to send the unwanted salesperson away, without opening the door.

The intercom system allows us to communicate without having to yell from one end of the house to the other, and not really hearing the message clearly. The call for supper now comes over the intercom, which has replaced the old dinner gong.

We continue to have difficulty with phone service accessibility, including call answering, voice mail and call display. We did try a small talking caller ID device, but found it did not provide all the information we need, at the same cost as those who can see. No two phone models have the same key layout, and function key labels are neither tactile nor audible. Speed dialing features, furthermore, require the operator to use visual prompts on the screen. We are still seeking solutions to some of these phone barriers.

As alluded to earlier, we can use our telephone to control the security system, some lights, heating and air conditioning, with voice prompts and action confirmations via voice or beeps. This can also be done through telephones outside our home, which is a convenient feature.

We have high speed internet connection with multiple computers simultaneously and independently accessing the world, using email, surfing the web and listening to online radio. We can scan documents, such as operating manuals and product directions, and then read them with our refreshable braille display or talking computers.

In-house email and file transfer capacity between computers is important for us as no two persons use the same equipment configurations. We have a Residential Universal Network (RUN) box for distributing computer, phone and video signals throughout the house.

Our VCR has talking on-screen programming that lets us set the event timer, by ourselves, to record programs. We only wish that the new digital television and DVD player on-screen programming had been introduced with an audio option, which would have given us easy access to this entertainment information.

Since we have access to multiple independent computer, television, radio and Internet capabilities, we both can watch different programs at the same time–Marie her hockey or football game, and Chris the news. We have hooked up a small transmitter to one of our computers, and we can now broadcast Internet programs through the house and pick them up on any radio, even in the backyard!

We have acquired a new clock that sings to us on the hour with different bird melodies, but which mercifully has a sensor that stops it from singing after dark, just like the real creatures in the trees!

Our electric stove has a numeric keypad that has been labeled in braille, which enables us to set oven temperatures and other functions like self-cleaning and timers by ourselves, with accuracy and confidence. The stove also beeps when dinner is ready. There are now some talking microwaves available, but we will use our old one until it gives up the struggle.

There are still some kitchen challenges we have not totally solved. For instance, we still have to label some products with braille, in order to identify them, and package directions are still inaccessible. The braille cookbook provides good recipes, as long as we get the right ingredients from the packages, with print-only labels and instructions!

One type of information we have and need is the weight given us as we step onto our talking scales. On second thought, maybe we could do without that information, after all!

This article appears in
CBM v. 20 – Home and Community

http://www.blindcanadians.ca/publications/cbm/20/furnace-speak-us

Trying to vote is a challenge

Finally, we have identified an experience more painful than visiting the dentist. In Ontario, voting for us, persons who are blind, is more traumatic than a root canal procedure.

Shortly after the 1999 election was called, we received a print only information sheet. We called Elections Ontario for a copy in a format we, as voters who are blind, could read. We were informed that a tape recording had been ordered from CNIB but no delivery time was known and we should call back in a few weeks. After going to and fro for some time, it was agreed to send us an electronic version by the Internet.

At the same time, we requested, for the first time, information about how persons who are blind vote and our accessibility options for casting our ballots. There was no information offered or available but we were told that we would receive a call back at a later time. We never did, and several subsequent requests were similarly filed away without the requested information ever being sent to us.

Next in the voting process came the enumeration card in print only. It would have been nice to have had some tactile marking or even a braille name on all cards, so that when people who are blind received them, it would be possible to separate these cards from the junk mail.

Because we could not vote on election day, we called for information about the advance poll. We called the Returning Office for our area for information about advanced polls and the provisions to facilitate the casting of secret ballots by voters who are blind. We were told that the locations were published in the newspapers. We were further told that we HAD to use a notched ballot. A later conversation with the Chief Returning Officer for Gloucester Carleton confirmed this information. We were further brusquely notified that she was concerned with the needs of “the broader masses”. The advance poll locations had not been selected with accessibility in mind and adequate, frequent public transportation service was not a consideration for selection.

The next morning, one day prior to the advanced poll, we managed to speak with the chief electoral officer for the province.

The conversation commenced with him delivering a lengthy lecture on why we should not use a template. He did not recommend them. He said that thousands of templates had been printed and circulated through the province. Very few would be used. It was a waste of money. It was further stated that the notched ballots were tested with eight persons who were blind. However, he was unable to tell us how to use them to vote with confidence.

With respect to the location of polling stations and advanced polling locations, we were informed once again that the information was published in the newspapers. We were told that at the bottom of the advertisement was a request that family and friends inform people who could not read about the information in the advertisements of voting locations and related information. As we indicated that we had no friends or acquaintances who were willing to do this for us, it was agreed to send us an e-mail with locations, dates and hours of operation of advanced polling stations we could use. He did call the local returning officer and after some time the templates were located and an assurance was given that they would be available. However, since they were discovered on the day prior to the advanced poll, we were apprehensive that no one had been trained on how to provide information and directions to voters arriving at polling locations without the ability to access print direction signs. Staff most likely would not know how to prepare the ballot with
the template for proper use by a voter who is blind.

So, it was with trepidation and uncertainty that we faced the challenge of voting in the advance poll. We called for directions from the bus stop to the polling station. Despite self identifying several times that we were persons who are blind the directions consisted over and over of the confident statement that “you will see the signs.” We finally determined after persistent questioning that the polling station was five doors down a strip mall after a parking lot next to a Macdonald’s restaurant.

We set out on local busses to vote. Before we would return home, it would be two and a half hours later. Eventually, we arrived at the strip mall in an adjacent suburb. The pathway from the street was half the width of a sidewalk and sloped on the side of a bank. We crossed in front of the repair bays of a garage and encountered an even narrower sidewalk blocked by open doors and gas feeder pipes and valves, to mention just a few of the obstacles that made the sidewalk impassable. Eventually, we were assisted through the building and entered the voting station.

It seems that the back of the industrial building faced the street and not the front. While there, several sighted voters came in and voiced concern about the difficulty they experienced finding the location. For us, it was finally time to vote.

The template and ballot was proffered and we marked our x. The attendant was not able to describe the way to fold the ballot and this meant that one of us folded it with the voting surface exposed. It would have been helpful to be told that the ballot has three creases in it, fold the left hand section over the middle and then the right hand section with the notches over the top of the other two. If the notches are on the left of the folded ballot it is folded in a way to preserve the secrecy of the vote cast. Finally, we found a valuable use for the notches as tactile folding markers.

Marking our x was also made very difficult because of the small size of the spaces for placing an x and thus the small size of the template holes. These spaces are at least three times smaller than the spaces provided on ballots in federal elections. This stingy space means that you can not use a second finger in the space provided to feel where the pencil point is as you mark an x. The federal system works and Ontario should seriously and honestly review its election procedures to ensure a welcoming and helpful environment for citizens who are blind to vote. We voted but felt like second class citizens whose vote was discouraged at every step of the way by Election Ontario officials.

“It’s a mine field!” “It’s really hazardous out there.” “It’s life threatening.” “It’s a product of an unthinking and uncaring society.” These are just a few of the phrases used by people who are blind to describe today’s beautiful, well-planned, resident-friendly suburban neighbourhoods.

Planners, architects and traffic engineers are well paid to design communities that meet the needs of our society, but do not seem to consider the needs of people who are blind. Apparently, we are not significant enough.

Politicians, however, are finding out that we are a significant segment of the community. Politicians are also finding out just how bad suburban designs are. It would have been cheap to make the suburban environment a safe place for all if we had started from scratch. Now it will cost big bucks to retrofit. Persons who are blind have human rights that democracy does not supersede. Even though money is tight, the deficit is growing and revenues are dropping, the needs of persons with disabilities must be met.

“Majority rules” or “the will of the people” are inadequate excuses when a whole segment of the population is being neglected. Politicians are becoming increasingly embarrassed at being put in the position of publicly having to defend negligence and behaviour by municipalities that threatens the lives of people who are blind.

It might have seemed logical as a cost-saving measure to not require subdivision developers to put at least one sidewalk on each street. But now people who are blind are expected to play “chicken” with moving vehicles as we share the same thoroughfare. It is hard to appreciate the original logic while cars are honking at you to get out of the way.

Parking is allowed on both sides of many of these “sidewalk-less” streets. They, in effect, become one lane roads with traffic in both directions and pedestrians who are blind competing for the centre of the road. In the winter, only one lane is ploughed down the centre of these streets because of the parked vehicles. In 1992, a frustrated official of our city told us that our street was not a street that people who are blind should live on. In other words, the problem of a lack of sidewalks was our fault for being blind.

When they reside on one side of the road, sidewalks will seldom meet. Pedestrians are constantly crossing the road from one side to the other to stay on the sidewalks. People who are blind are confused by this “dungeons and dragons” unconnected maze. We become disoriented and lost, to say nothing of repeatedly crossing the street looking for the sidewalk so we can stay out of the path of fast-moving vehicles.

Sidewalks are now frequently built next to the road without a grass divider separating them. In addition to having the feature of exposing pedestrians to drenchings from fast-moving vehicles, this design has the advantage of increasing the noise level and effectively reducing the usefulness of hearing for people who are blind.

Many obstacles populate our sidewalks as a matter of custom and usage: parked cars sticking out of driveways, signs, sandwich boards, bicycles, mail boxes, poles, newspaper dispensers, merchandise, chip wagons, awnings jutting at head level, improperly barricaded construction holes, construction equipment, parking meters in the middle of the sidewalk instead of at curb side and a host of other examples of the brick-a-brack of every day life.

You may think that this is pretty trivial stuff. Perhaps a few of my anecdotes will change your mind. We have had accidents with all of the above examples of obstacles. Oh yes! The response of the police is without fail that there is no by-law. We are concerned with traffic offences and crime. Ensuring order and public safety does not include pedestrian safety at all. The police are unwilling to help and have suggested when we express our concerns that we are creating a public nuisance.

I can tell you that walking into a bicycle handle bar or falling on concrete after tripping over a bicycle wheel really hurts. So does falling over a tricycle or getting your cane caught in the wheels of a doll carriage, but this is usually accompanied later by neighbours checking out the trike or carriage with concern to see if it is broken.

A driver looking to the left to make a right hand turn into the traffic on a fast moving street drove onto the sidewalk and flattened this unsuspecting person who is blind. With the return of consciousness came the awareness of a sermon being delivered by the motorist about “looking where you are going on the sidewalk”. So it’s the fault of the person who is blind for not seeing the sighted driver?

A nail puncture in my shoulder is the souvenir of a collision with a construction bin on wheels piled high with rubble being pushed out of a work site by a person who could not see where he was going over the top of the rubble.

A white cane does not give the average user enough warning time to stop moving into the unknown after it taps thin air. A particularly nasty fall into a partially barricaded hole in the middle of a crosswalk helped me make the decision to get a guide dog. These wonderful animals, however, bring with them their own set of urban hazards. Unleashed pets are a real danger. Glass, unbagged or canned garbage on the street and chemicals used to control weeds can threaten a dog’s health. Drivers who sometimes think I am sighted when they do not see my dog at the curb because he is beneath their field of vision think it is all right to play “chicken” with me. This is an unwanted game of Russian Roulette. Such games of chance in which the odds are stacked against the unsuspecting victim can be fatal.

Now that we have made our way through the uncharted mine field to the street corner, the battle begins in earnest. This is the area of maximum peril for people who are blind. We have no warning radar, protective armour or white flag of truce. At most corners, it is “Pedestrian beware”. There are no pedestrian safety laws. All the laws are written from the perspective of the motor vehicle operator. Laws permit vehicles to turn on red lights, except in “la belle province”. This vehicle movement on a red light is a particularly dangerous hazard for people who are blind. Our lives are in the hands of these people’s judgement. Hardly a week goes by without a close call.

The worst of it all is that when there is an accident, rarely is the vehicle operator held negligent. Blindness seems to carry with it its own inherent negligence and guilt because of our defencelessness in the sighted persons’ territory. The most famous case of this type occurred outside the office building of a well-known rehabilitation agency for persons who are blind, when a blind man was killed as he walked across a road on the crosswalk. The death was judged an accident because the driver did not see the blind person. The blind person’s lack of vision was fatal.

In the good old days, corners were true right angles. This ninety-degree angle allowed us to travel in straight lines across intersections by lining up with the angle.

Then came along a creative designer who figured out that vehicles could travel through intersections faster if the intersection curb was rounded. Now it is impossible to know when you have reached the corner. There are not even tactile markings. Guide dogs have the same problem since their training relies on the “straight line” concept and the user’s ability to line up with the intersection in the direction she or he wishes to cross the road. The rounded curb is a new and very dangerous menace for us.

These same creative traffic engineers figured out that if islands were placed in the intersection, cars could move even faster with access lanes that allowed right hand turns without even coming to a stop at the intersection. Now people who are blind or who have guiding vision have to cross these lanes to reach the islands and the area where traffic is controlled by the lights. Of course, the driver approaches from behind the pedestrian and cannot see a cane and the pedestrian’s body blocks his guide dog. The driver thinks that it is just one more sighted person who can see him coming and will use his sight to know when to swerve out of the way.

Finding these islands from a rounded curb with traffic which does not stop for pedestrians regardless of the colour of the lights is a killing field for people who are blind. Now, add to this insanity the needs of people who use wheelchairs without regard for people with sensory disabilities and an impossible challenge is created. The first curb cuts were built at the crosswalks. People who are blind started strolling into the middle of intersections, believing they were still on a safe sidewalk. The warning of the curb was gone. Now, to save money, curb cuts are built in the middle of the corner so that one will service both directions. We now can step into the intersection at a forty-five-degree angle and double our risk by jay walking without any warning.

In winter, the sides of these curb cuts become very icy and cause numerous accidents for people who are blind. They cannot see the curb cuts and thus do not line up on the it correctly or avoid it all together. Inevitably, the street snow plough ends up plugging the ends of sidewalks at the intersections after the sidewalks have been ploughed. This lack of co-ordination and failure to clear the ends of sidewalks is very disorienting as it buries the curb. The curb is key to safe mobility for people who are blind. Needless to say, scaling snow banks in close proximity to moving traffic is a particularly nasty game of chance, as is walking on a “sidewalk-less” street in the winter where the white cane blends into the snow flakes and snow bank.

Some intersections have unique traffic light patterns where cars in one direction are given a preference to turn across the path of traffic in the opposite direction. Listening to traffic motion does not give us warning of this circumstance. There is even an intersection we know of where there are only crosswalks on three of the four sides. There are not any barricades on the fourth side as there are in England to warn the unsuspecting pedestrian, only visual signs.

At many intersections, it is possible to judge the status of the lights by the noises made by moving traffic. Where the traffic flow volume is not even in all directions we need help from audible traffic signals. Their sound need only be at a volume just a hint above the environmental noise level of the intersection. When a new set of suitable traffic signals were erected in our neighbourhood, they sounded like air raid sirens. They were audible from blocks away. They probably would have shattered crystal. The response to our inquiry about the loudness of the signals was a declaration with pride that “They are so loud, people who are profoundly deaf can hear them.”

What is needed is understanding and planning for all needs. A first step in this process is acceptance of the fact that blindness really means a lack of sight. This is a self-evident truth that has yet to be believed by urban planners, architects, designers, traffic engineers and the elected officials who oversee their grandiose schemes.

This oversight is unfathomable in the face of known fact. According to Transport Canada transportation fatality statistics, pedestrian deaths are one of the top three causes of death in Canada today. People who are blind helped to elect these officials too, and it is high time that municipally-elected office holders started representing us all!

On Canada Day, it is appropriate to reflect on life in this country as a citizen who is blind. Much has changed in my lifetime. Much has not. The opportunities, experiences and exclusions are descriptive of the diverse nature of Canadian society.

School was in a residential institution. Sent from home at age five for ten months of each year in order to learn was my childhood reality. It was an artificial world inside a fence to keep the world out. I remember the taunts of kids going to the public school down the road. Other vivid memories were having to pay older boys a penny in order to be allowed to go to the bathroom, sitting on a knotty wooden floor for ten hours as punishment for not conforming/obeying, and labelled “the village idiot” by the teaching staff.

However, I was fortunate, as school was a crucible of independence and self-reliance. I learned to think for myself, judge what was good for me and fight viciously for opportunity. Career counselling consisted of demanding I decide between working in a canteen, or receiving a pension for the blind.

Surviving school gave me the drive to go to university, when all said I could not do it, and graduate with high honours. I found my first job at age 16 moving wet soggy pea vines around, because no one else wanted a job for seventy cents an hour that covered you with green vegetable dye after each 12 hour night shift. I graduated to sorting soiled laundry in a hospital, and eventually became a manager in a big office serving the public.

Even before I finished school, I started paying taxes and have done so each year since. I have raised a family, and now our two children are living independently, paying taxes and making their own contributions to Canada.

These accomplishments represent lots of fence jumping. Fighting for a sidewalk in order to be able to bring our children to dance lessons safely, arguing for the opportunity to vote secretly in municipal elections, and ability to obtain money from an accessible automated banking machine that verbalizes the prompts, are representative of the thorny barriers to full participation surmounted.

It is tempting to lie back and stay safely behind the fences of exclusion. New technology has resulted in the physical fences being surpassed by higher virtual barriers that are just as virulent in their denial of opportunity and enhanced quality of life. Today we seek appliances with controls that can be operated with touch and with audible cues, cell phones that have audio output of screen prompts, on-screen information for television that is verbalized by digital set top boxes that are accessible and usable by blind people, as well as manuals and assembly instructions for new equipment, and public health information that can be read without sight.

Yes, I have run out of many fenced-in constraints, but each escape seems to lead to a new stockade. When will Canada embrace all, including persons who are blind, in the marketplace of life’s opportunities. Quality of benefit is still the dream. .

As the senior years approach, it is painfully evident that the disability supports are few and far between. Participation is resisted, such as when we were told not to join a walking group in our community because it was unsafe. Health information and prescription directions are not offered in usable formats. Information on home modifications for people who are blind is practically non-existent from CMHC.

Fence busting can make a big difference. As a taxpayer, I look to public bodies to create the positive environment that leads to smoothing out the steeple chase of life. As a Canadian who is blind, it is discouraging to be repeatedly told that the only option to denial of service is to file a complaint.