MONTREAL - People with limited mobility staged a noisy protest outside a symposium on the future of public transportation in Montreal.
They are campaigning for full access to the metro system, and say that current plans to expand elevator access are just too slow.
At the moment, only seven stations -- all on the orange line -- are accessible to people in wheelchairs.
While the STM said several years ago it would install elevators in three stations a year, that schedule has been trimmed to building just one elevator annually.
"Which means that the metro will be completely accesible by 2085 which we think is a really long delay," said Joelle Rouleau.
Maria Barile has been fighting for an accessible metro for decades, and finds the current situation a struggle.
When boarding public transit with her wheelchair, Barile said "First of all I have to wait two hours for a person to come with the ramp, then I can't get off where I want to get off. I work at Dawson College."
The closest stop for Barile to her workplace is Lionel Groulx, which would mean even after commuting to that station, she would have to wait for an accessible bus to bring her up the hill.
To prove the point that it's taking too long to install elevators, two students in wheelchairs boarded the metro at Cote Vertu, then transferred to the green line at Lionel Groulx, only to get off at Place des Arts and be stuck on the platform.
"They are of a generation that should have been able to go wherever they wanted," said Barile.
The protesters did not go unheard.
Michel Labrecque, the Chairman of the STM left the symposium and came outside to talk to the demonstrators for about 15 minutes.
He said the cost to install elevators in the metro stations is much more than initially anticipated, and the agency's budget just cannot accommodate building more than one elevator per year.
Labrecque said it costs "between 10 and 15 million dollars per station depending how deep it is."
With an annual budget of $100 million per year for repairs and maintenance, building elevators any faster would be "impossible, absolutely impossible."
