Whether it’s automatic doors or elevators, accessibility can benefit everyone, not just those with disabilities.
Brad Bartko, accessibility consultant and owner of Disability: Accessible by Design, said accessibility can take different forms but no matter how it looks, it helps create an inclusive environment for everyone.
“It not only affects people like me, but it helps someone like you, or else your neighbour or whatever,” Bartko said. “Accessibility and inclusion is for everyone and everybody’s life will become easier in one way, one way or another because of becoming inclusive and thinking about the bigger picture.”
A person can develop a disability at any point in their life, be it permanent or temporary. So, it is important to be proactive in creating accessible environments.
“We’re all bound to have a disability in some way, shape or form, like this old age, accident, illness, short-term, long-term, permanently — whatever that is. So it’s super important to build proactively and start to think of this stuff now,” Bartko said.
Christine Fleming, the regional director for the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists, said that not only does accessibility help prepare for when a disability may affect you, but accessible features can also help able-bodied people, like an automatic door when people have their hands full.
“As we create new environments, new buildings, new green spaces, parks, the whole nine yards, I think we really need to take the approach from a universal perspective and create places that are accessible for everyone,” Fleming said.
If a person notices that somewhere is not accessible, Fleming encourages them to speak up and ask for change.
“You just have to go out and say, ‘You know what? I would like to attend this event,’ or ‘I’d like to participate in whatever your business has to offer.’ And be proud of having the voice to make a change and make a difference in your life and other people’s lives by asking for something that is your right to have to do. “