Major construction projects have made walking on Monkland a challenge for pedestrians this year but new sidewalks have made it even harder for people who have disabilities.

Norman MacIsaac, who suffers from ALS and uses a wheelchair, said curbs on the newly constructed sidewalks are too high for him to get around. Curbs are supposed to be one centimeter higher than the street and can pose a hazard if higher.

“If I come towards the incline, I have to slow down,” he said. “If that’s at a stop sign, the danger is that if I slow down to make that maneuver, the cars are coming very close behind me… Frankly, in some places I was scared I would tip over.”   

He pointed to the corner of Monkland and Oxford as particularly dangerous for those in wheelchairs, and that it comes after a period of intense construction in which being on Monkland was almost impossible for him.

“When they were doing the work, they make the streets accessible to pedestrians, but not necessarily to people in wheelchairs,” he said.

MacIsaac said he called 311 in mid-September and while he was eventually given a case number, he said he was given little information on a resolution.

On Saturday, MacIsaac tweeted a complaint to Cote-Des-Neiges-NDG Mayor Russell Copeman, who told him the curbs were the result of an error on the part of a contractor and the one on Oxford had been remedied at their expense.

 

 

 

But MacIsaac said the issue is systemic.

“If I do renovations in my home, I hire contractors, I don’t let them do the work, I inspect it,” he said. “If there’s thing I don’t like, I go back to them and ask them to correct. I’m the inspector in this case, I’m the one raising the issue and I don’t work for the city.”