THE obstacles for Michael Dalli’s relatively short trip from his home in Sunshine West to Footscray begin just outside his door.
Mr Dalli, 41, has multiple sclerosis and has been using an electric wheelchair for the past decade.
Often, the bus near his home doesn’t have a ramp and he has to drive his chair half an hour to the railway station.
Once there, he has to park near the train driver’s door so he can board via a ramp.
If it’s raining, he’ll shelter in what he says looks and smells like a toilet block.
Then when he reaches Footscray, he hopes the lifts are working. “It’s very frustrating,” he said.
“I’ve got to time my trip and leave much earlier than most people – 50percent of the time I don’t make it at all.
“The state government is basically washing its hands of passenger issues like ours.”
The Victorian Council of Social Services says people with disabilities, like Mr Dalli, are being left stranded due to poor access to public transport and lack of information about services. It says the public transport system is unsafe and failing vulnerable users, such as those who use mobility aids like crutches, wheelchairs, scooters or walking frames, parents with prams, and people with other physical or vision or hearing impairments. VCOSS has started a campaign – All Aboard – calling on the government to improve access and service information on the state’s trams, trains and buses and at stations and stops.
Several more clear examples of inequity have been highlighted recently.
Altona resident Annmarie Kelly, who is blind, has complained to the Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission because she repeatedly boarded the wrong train at Newport due to a lack of service announcements.
As previously reported by the Weekly, breakdown reports released by train operator Metro show there were 220 “unplanned outages” at Laverton station and 57 at Footscray last year.
The reports showed vandalism accounted for three of every four instances of lift breakdowns, leaving disabled people, the elderly and parents with infants to negotiate the stairs as neither the $93million Laverton station, opened in July 2010, nor the $14.7million footbridge at Footscray station have ramp access to the platforms.
Commuters are being urged to tell their stories about problems with inaccessible transport.
Transport Minister Terry Mulder’s office did not respond to questions from the Weekly.
Details: allaboard.org.au.
