DirectioNS

"DIRECTIONS Council for Vocational Services Society is a not for profit organization representing 28 member agencies throughout Nova Scotia. The Council's mandate is to assist and support member organizations in the delivery of services that promote the abilities and inclusion of persons with disabilities in the every day activities of their community."

When I did the math last year, taxpayers funded $28,404,968 at 27 agencies in the province. The Department of Community Services accounted for $23.7 million of that.

My purpose is not to alarm, but to be realistic.  There are dozens of examples of vulnerable people being taken advantage of by those who are meant to be taking care of them.  The Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children, the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, the Shelburne School for Boys, the Truro School for Girls, sexual abuse in Antigonish diocese by Roman Catholic clergy-- and those are just the local examples.

In sheltered workshops, 83% of participants are intellectually challenged and particularly vulnerable. Most are adults who may not have had instruction in appropriate behaviour, either amongst themselves or with authority figures.

Vulnerable people are magnets to predators. Sex offenders continuously find ways to insinuate  themselves with victims. Bullies, thieves - all look for the easy prey.

It would be nice if nothing untoward ever happened in sheltered workshops. Wishful thinking aside, shouldn't there be a written policy and some effort to protect participants? Without written rules, someone is sure to be hurt.

But it's the law you say.  Isn't that enough?  Well, it was the same law for the priests, the residential school and the Home for Colored Children.   The temptation is to sweep incidents under the rug.

A quick check of the Directions Council website shows a lack of uniform policy about this issue.

• At Colchester Community Workshops, they have an extensive written policy - mostly about client behaviour.
• At Dartmouth Adult Services, the promised PDF file is not linked.
• At Flowercart, client rights are enumerated
• At Penny Lane, and New Leaf, I find nothing.

The Department of Community Services, which funds members of the Directions Council, had this to say:

Individual centres would have their own policies around harassment and their own mechanisms for dealing with participant complaints. We do not have a provincial policy.

An officer of DirectioNS emailed me:

To my knowledge each agency has there own policies on this and the Directions Council has suggested standards.  

If I was a parent, employee, director, or donor, I'd want clarity and direction. As a taxpayer, I want the Department of Community Services to impose a minimum set of policies and procedures. Everyone involved needs reassurance that participants are safe and boundaries are understood and enforced. This needs to include:

• Definitions
• Mandantory education
• Dispute Resolution
• Involving Law Enforcement
• Background Checks
• Clear chain of authority
• Consequences

L'Arche has an excellent example of a straightforward, comprehensive and thoughtful approach to the problem. Supporters and operators of workshops would be irresponsible not to insist upon such a policy.  

Meanwhile, in the Big Apple

Here is a very positive story about how a fractious and entrenched bureaucracy can actually solve a problem.

A woman using a power wheelchair had a minor crash when getting off a bus in New York.  An ambulance was called and the EMTs wanted to take her to the hpospital.
What to do with the 250 pound wheelchair?  No one knew.  She went home instead, but took the time to write the mayor,  who referred it to something called Collaborative Policing.

As the Times reports (Ms. Herman is involved in interdepartmental affairs):

“A few days later, the mayor’s office writes to us in collaborative policing, saying, more or less, ‘This is a problem, fix this,’ ” Ms. Herman said.

Thus convened what is far too often the greatest sinkhole of government: the interagency conference. Typically — well, maybe not typically, but frequently — people from multiple agencies at such gatherings will do two things. They will admire a problem. Then they will creatively avoid dealing with it.

Ms. Herman did not detail any bureaucratic gore. “After a bunch of conversations, it appeared the best way to resolve this was that we would buy ramps that can hitch onto the back of E.S.U. trucks,” she said, referring to the Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit, which can do almost anything — hostage negotiations, rescuing children whose hands are trapped in a fence, riding Jet Skis to water emergencies and mounting SWAT teams.

The solution was a trailer with a ramp that can hold the wheelchair. Ten trucks are now equipped with them, at a cost of $200 each. The wheelchair can be moved to the next place that the person lands.

“You can just ride or guide the wheelchair up a ramp and it sits onto a cantilevered platform, out of the back of the truck,” Ms. Herman said. “For $2,000, this shouldn’t happen to anyone else.”

Can it happen in Halifax?  Can our city councilors pry themselves away from important culinary deliberations long enough to behave like adults?  Can Mr. Butts descend from the mountain long enough to deliver a $2000 cheque?  Can a SWAT team handle a wheelchair?

This is a test.

ps New York City doesn't seem to have an official food.........

How to Lie with Statistics

On Thursday, HalifaxExaminer published this announcement of a Government meeting:

Crosswalk safety advisory committee (10am, City Hall) — there’s been a welcome decline in the number of pedestrians struck:

I don't know if Tim is just pulling our leg, but nothing could be further from the truth. As I have said before on this subject, the police's insistence on viewing the complex world one variable at a time can lead to false conclusions and, most importantly, neglects important information. A simple example:

Rather than looking year-by-year, here is a graph of the complete 3 1/2 years, showing that 2015 has barely nudged off the moving average of 17.1 incidents per month (The lowest moving average, 14.7, occurred in August, 2013):

This can be confirmed by averaging the data by month and comparing it to the first seven months of 2015:
The downward trend of 2015 seems to occur in the first half of every year.

Better yet is a summary by season, which does provide a clue as to what's happening:

You don't suppose that pedestrian collisions are connected to lousy snow clearing? Sounds pretty far fetched......

I promise you that the number of collisions will soon rebound to the 15-20 range, peaking in the winter months.  As a wheelchair user, I take this personally because I'm not very agile in avoiding hurtling autos.  

The chart of Vehicle-Pedestrian Collisions is entirely inconclusive as to any trend and further demonstrates HRM Police’s confusion of ‘counting’ with ‘analysis’. The stubborn reliance on considering one variable at a time means that important questions go unanswered.

• Which intersections have accidents during peak commuter times?
• Are there intersections that are dangerous for under 25-year-olds on weekends?
• Do lighting conditions make a difference?
• How about the pattern of paint?

Intersections are complex, and the problem will persist until the complexities are accounted for.  Arithmetic just isn”t enough.

Snow Job

Paul Vienneau, Halifax's secret weapon 

Two hours and eight minutes into the lengthy Committee of the Whole meeting on August 4, held to discuss the report on winter operations, Councillor Gloria McCluskey said this:

"...and one of the  big problems too, for residents; the buses were hauled off the road so often.  You know, I never heard of that, and I guess that told us something, when buses were not able to operate.  Residents couldn't get to work.  They were docked pay and even lost their jobs sometimes."

Even allowing for hyperbole, that is a startling admission.  People lost their jobs because HRM didn't do theirs.  To the credit of Council, the meeting laid bare a fault line in the way HRM is governed.

Because the Winter Operations Report was conceived and executed as an administrative exercise, practical considerations like getting to work take a back seat to accounting problems like the capacity to handle 311 calls.  You or I would think first of removing the reasons for the 311 calls.  More shoveling means less calling.  But the report's primary recommendation is increasing 311 staff.  If only we could count our mistakes better.......

In a similar way, the report discusses standards without reference to purpose.  As the Accessibility Advisory Committee pointed out, main arterials cleared in 12 hours and adjacent sidewalks in 48 makes no sense if the goal is getting people to work.  It makes sense if the goal is to force people to take automobiles and increase traffic congestion.  When snow removal is just a public relations problem, we hardly remember why we're doing it in the first place.  Like the snow report, HRM policy is often framed in terms of administrative detail, never referencing overarching goals.  

Welcome to my world.  For a month this winter you were 'mobility-challenged' as they say, not because of some inherent problem you have, but because of someone else's ineptitude.  Never mind the snow and ice, people with disabilities face needless barriers every day, even in mid-August, 2015.   

The disconnect between practicalities and purpose is a real problem in Halifax.  Take the pedestrian / vehicle encounters, which we blithely blame on bad drivers, bad pedestrians and bad alignment of the planets, never considering the bad design that is the biggest problem.  We paint lines to use up the paint supply, not aware that the two parallel lines of a crosswalk are nearly invisible to oncoming traffic.  We renew curb cuts according to a random set of priorities and a standard found nowhere else on earth.  We should use paint so drivers can see the crosswalk.  Our curb cuts should expedite safe crossing and allow easy snowplowing.  

Over the years, wheelchair users in particular have come to understand that the reason so little changes in Halifax is because there is so little accountability. Leadership is thwarted.  Our form of government seems to discourage the kind of cross-departmental discussion that can solve complicated problems. We throw up our hands when our right-of-way bylaw runs headlong into the need for access to business.  We're smarter than that, we can figure it out.

People have very simple goals: personal safety, health, getting ahead, getting around, fair treatment.  Everything government does should advance those goals.  A well-designed sidewalk or transit system is not only a way to get around; they enhance public safety, and further commerce.  When a snowy sidewalk is just an accounting problem, its purpose is forgotten.  

People with disabilities have unconscionable unemployment rates.  Our municipal services make it worse, as McCluskey candidly admitted.

We should take this opportunity to re-examine the basic structure of city government.  We don't care about blame, but we want accountability.  We need to figure out how to get our operations to match our aspirations.  

Our Councillors, are elected to execute our wishes.  When they don't, we usually get around to electing someone else.  This is accountability.  Departments need to report to Council, so they can report to us.  No one likes to fire anyone, but when no one is fired, no one is held accountable and citizens are let down.  And we don't want the guy (it probably is a guy) who's stuck with executing a bad plan.  We want the guy who's preventing good planning. World-class cities don't disappoint their citizens.

Bikes vs. Chairs

I really love bikes.  The mechanics, the precision, the freedom, the sense of accomplishment.  I've biked all over (triked, really).  I worshipped at the feet of Lance, before they turned out to be made of clay.  But I have a couple of questions about the proposed bike lane on University Avenue.

Parking

There is unhappiness about changes to accessible parking.  On planet Earth, there is no good implementation of accessible parking.  There is little enforcement, the number of spaces has nothing to do with the number of permits, the lone driver sprints from the car, the nearest curb cut is often far away.

As a wheelchair user, a regular width space does me no particular good, and because I'm a passenger, never a driver, being close up against the curb makes transfer difficult.

Here's the thing:  people with disabilities want to be treated the same, not differently.  Don't try to tell me how special I am by giving me a blue parking space.  Tell me how special I am by giving me a job and some fairness.  As one of it's "Priority Outcomes" HRM swoons about Universal Design.  There is a standard for a Universal Design parking space; make them like that and I'll take my chances, just like everyone else, on finding one that's convenient.

Think of it: all parking is accessible.  Doubtless the answer is "Well, Universal Design except for parking"

If your teenager is out getting a bag of chips at the corner store, he isn't tempted to use his mother's Accessible Permit to duck in for a sec.  If he finds a space, it's his.  For me, the same applies;  if I find a space, it works;  if I don't, I'm in the same boat as everyone else.

And free?  Don't make it free, make it useable.

Pilot Project

I'm not sure why this is characterized as an experiment.

These are the natural language objectives of the experiment:

• This is a valuable exercise to inform active transportation initiatives in the community and the first step in implementing Dalhousie's vision for the renewal of University Avenue.
• The goal of this pilot project is to test best practices in cycling infrastructure, demonstrate the enhanced safety of a separated bike lane, and encourage increased ridership for cyclists of all ages and abilities.

Not to be pedantic, but an experiment requires some very specific steps:

• Observation
• a separated bike lane is a good way to encourage urban bicycle transport
• Hypothesis
• separated bike lanes are safer
• their advantages outweigh disruptions 
• Prediction
• People will have  more confidence in separated bike lanes 
• There are fewer accidents
• There will be more bikers
• There are benefits to us all
• less use of automobiles
• more equitable use of infrastructure
• Experiment
• To know if the protected lane works like you predict, you'd need something to compare it to.  An authentic experiment would be fun and interesting, maybe even educational. Here are some things you might experiment with:
• some protected stretches, some unprotected
• a range of pavement markings
• lane differentiation at intersections (there are lots of intersections)
• a one-way side street
• a side street with a bike lane
• crosswalk tables
• some sections with parking, some without
• eye-level traffic signals like in Amsterdam

This project is a prediction without any experiment.  A guess, not an empirical study.

University Avenue: The experiment.

We aren't privileged to learn of Dalhousie's vision for the renewal of University Avenue.  Probably there is a move afoot to have a memorable entrance and look more like Princeton.  

Just as a suggestion, an authentic experiment with UAve as the lab would be a visible reminder that learning is empirical and a good university serves the community.  

In a real experiment, at the same time you watched bike lane behaviour, data could be accumulated on parking spaces.  There are a ton of smart parking apps, meters that will send you a text, sensors to direct you to free spaces, different prices at different times, remote control of emergency priorities.

And you could try some other tricks to increase bike ridership

• Subsidized leases
• Bike culture promotion
• Shower and locker facilities

Pedestrians

I'm concerned that an infatuation with biking will distract HRM's attention from correcting its fundamental and longstanding failure toward pedestrians.  At best, biking is a sometime thing.  The weather, the time of day, your other plans.  But being a pedestrian is eternal.  You have to cross the street, you have to get in the door.  More bikes won't help.    I wrote about this seven years ago yet HRM still insists on installing those useless and pathetic fan-shaped curb ramps - it's like Newton never lived.  Send those engineers to the woodshed!

And Finally

I can't help thinking of the boulevard separating the halves of University Avenue.  If safety and convenience are the prime considerations and Dal wants to have a new look, why not transform the Gobi Desert into something like this?

Rethinking the traffic circulation might yield even more bonuses.  If side streets were one way leading away from UAve, the boulevard could be continuous.  

My guess is that Dal and HRM would reject this on some variation of the sacred historical integrity defense so often used to deny access to wheelchairs.  

Often called Inertia. 

Gus Reed

Pedestrian Crossing Ahead

Six years ago, I wrote about Halifax's non-existent sidewalk standards. This summer I was a passenger in a car which sideswiped a pedestrian.  It didn't seem to be anyone's fault particularly, but the crosswalk was in a funny place and only half-heartedly marked. I wondered at the time if the infrastructure could've been better - in light of the recent spate of pedestrian deaths, I'm wondering again.

My take on pedestrian accidents is that the infrastructure is often inadequate and partly to blame.   Good infrastructure design should anticipate texting drivers, earbudded pedestrians, and bad weather and do what it can to mitigate the danger.

I read the November 27 agenda of the HRM Crosswalk Safety Advisory Committee (no minutes since June) and it pointed to reports from the police and RCMP.   They document the basics - number, location, injuries, age, time and weather.  They say nothing about the physical attributes of the location.

HRM puts its design criteria in the Red Book, where you will find only one diagram of a curb cut (#49) and you will search in vain for a crosswalk.  Contrast that with the many ideas and rules of the ADA Access Board (can't find the PDF).  There is a dizzying array of alternatives at the Federal Highway Administration.  HRM's Traffic & Right-of-Way Services says it follows the Pedestrian Crossing Control Guide (2012), which you can buy for $155.  This guide may provide some insights.

It's pretty evident that a single page of the Red Book being devoted to pedestrian crossings is inadequate and irresponsible.  As evidence, consider the heavily used midblock crosswalk in front of Lawton's on Spring Garden, going over to Brenton Street.  A small sign for an out-of-context crosswalk seems poorly thought out.

The corners where a diagonal curb cut serves both crossings (left hand diagram on #49) is the most dangerous.  How is a motorist supposed to figure which way a pedestrian is headed?  In my wheelchair, I have to go down the ramp, into the path of traffic, before turning to make the correct crossing.  Check the corner of Summer and Spring Garden for many close calls every day.

There are plenty of standards, but HRM studiously avoids them, hence the poles in the middle of sidewalks, the out-of-reach buttons for walk signals - every crosswalk seems different.  

I thought it might be interesting to look at one intersection - the corner of Portland Hills Drive and Portland Estates Boulevard, where William Lee was killed this fall.  Here are some annotated Google Street View pictures - they date from 2011, but I doubt much has changed:

(click to enlarge)

This intersection is clearly a mess.  Nothing to be proud of, and possibly by its very nature a contributor to the death of Bill Lee.

I hope to hear of HRM's new standards for pedestrian rights-of-way, and to learn of the program to remediate existing infrastructure.  Standards have been envisioned as part of the forthcoming accessibility legislation, but there's no excuse for delay.

Gus Reed