This is a follow-up to my previous post, “A Practical Mother’s Day Gift To Come, Hopefully.” Last week, on Friday, June 3rd, I hand-delivered my proposal letter to the Superstore located on the corner of St. John’s Sideroad and Bayview Avenue to add a sidewalk. As everyone knows, the mail service is currently in dispute, so I wasn’t going to let it sit in their storage.
That day, I walked the same path. At the store, I gave it to one of the ladies at the Customer Service desk, addressed to the store manager. After all, the receipts have the store manager’s name listed for concerns and issues. The accessibility to the property for pedestrians is my concern. It’s been a few days, and I hope it has been read by now. However, I will give it a couple of weeks, as I am sure I am not the only issue on their list. I shall then follow up if I don’t hear anything in a couple of weeks.
Secondly, as I already revealed, it is the North-West corner of the Real Canadian Superstore that has very poor and unsafe accessibility to the property for those who commute by foot, especially parents pushing children in strollers.
I also took Barry’s recommendations to write to the Town of Aurora Accessibility Advisor to hopefully amend their guidelines. The following is a clip from my cover letter.
“While I am awaiting their response, I would like to give you an opportunity to review my proposal to Superstore. I believe the Superstore example should justify my recommendation to amend your Accessibility Guidelines to include property access points in addition to building access points and all pedestrians with or without challenges. The three main points that I would like you to consider are:
“1. Access to retail properties must be designed for pedestrians as well as drivers.
“2. Pedestrian access must include people with physical challenges.
“3. People with physical challenges must include parents with strollers.”
As per Weekly Notice Board from The Banner Tuesday May 31, 2011, page 4, May 29 to June 4 was a National Access Awareness Week that read:
“The Town of Aurora is proud to acknowledge May 29 to June 4 as National Access Awareness Week in an effort to raise awareness of the importance of equal access and full participation of persons with disabilities in our community.”
Perfect timing for National Access Awareness Week. We are now “driving society”. We use cars everywhere. Superstore is a perfect property with driver access only. There are stairs on the East side of the building, but how good is that entrance for parents with strollers?
Hopefully the Town’s Accessibility Advisor will take this matter seriously. The letter was deposited in the Large Item Deposit Box. However, I have yet to find out that I should have deposited it into the Treasury Deposit slot. There was a nice man in the parking lot, probably someone who works for the Town of Aurora, and he said he will inform Bill of my large item in the deposit box. It is a really good feeling to know that people care and help you out.
As I always try to include photos from the Town of Aurora in my posts, here is a photo of the street where I am hoping for the sidewalk. If you look closely at the far back right side of the photo, behind the big tree with no leaves, you can see some green trees. All the trees at the South-East corner of St. John’s Sideroad and Bayview Avenue were cut down last week. I am very disappointed. This corner looked unrecognizable when we drove by. In fact, I asked my husband, “Where are we?”
Darn, I also missed the photo opportunity. It was on my list, but someone was faster than me. Well, my source for the photo below, probably the only photo, is Google Maps, Street View – a very handy tool.
COMMENTS
melissa gmc said: June 10, 2011 at 15:17
“Great suggestion of a place that definitely needs to be brought to their attention.”
admin said: June 10, 2011 at 15:39
“Thank you Melissa. The Town of Aurora is already reviewing my recommendations. Hopefully it will all work out on the end for both sides.”
Butterfly said: June 13, 2011 at 22:02
“You have touched on two points that I certainly can relate to. My family walked just last week to the Superstore from our neighbourhood pathway and had to jaywalk to the parking lot entrance where there also was no pathway for us to jump onto with the stroller so we had to hustle our children and encourage them to scale along a garden and then across a busy parking lot to gain access.
“I too felt sickened when I saw all of the trees levelled at the corner of St. John’s and Bayview. Was it really necessary to cut them down all the way to the road? Are these builders completely incapable of saving ANY of the mature trees? It’s pathetic. So thankful that my home backs onto the Arboretum. Hopefully they can’t take that from us too.”
admin said: June 14, 2011 at 01:08
“Butterfly, thank you for sharing your experience. I am still waiting for the Superstore reply, I think they really should really consider doing something with their parking lot and access. I am going to go with it all they way, and let see how far I get. Now I have about 6 cases, just enough to make a big case, I think. Yes I felt sick too, and disoriented. This corner never be the same. Thank you again for your comments.”
