Submits Brief Showing City Staff Reports Prove E-Scooters Endanger Public Safety and Accessibility for People with Disabilities, Seniors, Children and Others
ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE
NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 24, 2021 Toronto: Tomorrow, starting at 9:30 am, the City of Toronto’s Accessibility Advisory Committee will consider if the City should take steps to allow electric scooters (e-scooters) in Toronto. The AODA Alliance is scheduled to make a deputation to the Committee. The meeting will be live-streamed at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfe2rzOnQzgEDvNzRRPUJsA
The AODA Alliance filed a detailed brief with the Committee. It explains that e-scooters would endanger public safety, lead to injuries and even deaths, create barriers to accessibility for people with disabilities, and force the taxpayer to shoulder new financial burdens. A City Staff Report last summer showed that the supposed social benefits of e-scooters reducing road traffic and pollution are illusory and unproven.
“If e-scooters in Toronto get approved, Torontonians will suffer the personal injuries and get stuck paying the expenses while e-scooter rental companies, who are pushing for their product to get into Toronto, will earn the profits and try to dodge liability for injuries they cause,” said David Lepofsky, Chair of the non-partisan AODA Alliance that has spearheaded advocacy to protect people with disabilities from the dangers that e-scooters pose. “Those e-scooter corporate lobbyists will be laughing all the way to the bank while we are sobbing all the way to hospital emergency rooms.”
The AODA Alliance will applaud the Toronto Accessibility Advisory Committee for unanimously advising Toronto City Council back on February 3, 2020 that e-scooters should remain banned in Toronto. It will call on Mayor John Tory and City Council members to stand up for people with disabilities, seniors, children and others whom e-scooters endanger. They should stand up to the e-scooter corporate lobbyists that are inundating City Hall with a high-price feeding frenzy of backroom lobbying.
On October 30, 2020, a new report pulled back the curtain to reveal the stunning behind-the-scenes high-price feeding frenzy of back-room pressure that e-scooter corporate lobbyists have flooded City Hall with for months, relentlessly pressuring City Hall to pass a by-law to lift the much-needed ban on e-scooters. That report gave insight into why in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic when other pressing issues should be a priority, Toronto’s municipal politicians are so seriously considering unleashing e-scooters in Toronto, despite their amply-documented dangers to people with disabilities, seniors and others. Key disability organizations vigourously oppose e-scooters, because of these proven dangers.
That report showed that entries in Toronto’s official Lobbyist Registry filling fully 73 pages, reveal that in just the two years from June 2018 to October 2020, eight e-scooter rental companies and three lobbying firms have documented fully 1,384 contacts with City Hall in person, by phone, by virtual meeting or by email. Amidst this onslaught of corporate lobbyists’ approaches are a dizzying 94 contacts with the Mayor’s Office, including 10 with Mayor Tory himself, 58 with the Mayor’s Senior Advisor, Legislative Affairs Daniela Magisano, 15 with Mayor Tory’s Director of Legislative Affairs Edward Birnbaum, 10 with his Chief of Staff Luke Robertson, and 1 with Mayor Tory’s Deputy Chief of Staff Courtney Glen.
Taking on the well-connected and well-funded corporate lobbyists at City Hall is quite a lopsided battle, but disability advocates are experienced with uphill battles. Corporate lobbyists are pressing for a pilot project in Toronto with e-scooters. This would be nothing less than a human experiment on the public and would endanger the public, including people with disabilities, without their consent. Human experimentation on non-consenting people is universally condemned.
Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance
For more background, read the AODA Alliance ‘s February 22, 2021 brief to the Toronto Accessibility Advisory Committee. Visit the AODA Alliance e-scooters web page. Check out the AODA Alliance’s short captioned video that shows why Toronto should not allow e-scooters.