Google Maps tells Akii Ngo it will take 22 minutes to walk to the nearest metropolitan train station. But Ngo knows it will take at least 15 minutes longer than that.
“As a wheelchair user, you can’t step over things, like the kerb. You have to find all of the accessible components of a path,” Ngo says.
Not all paths near Ngo’s home in Melbourne’s western suburbs are created equal: many don’t have graded kerbs, which means wheelchair users have to find suitably sloped driveways to cross roads – or even travel on the road itself. “Which is dangerous,” Ngo says. “You’re literally riding your wheelchair into oncoming traffic.”
Plus, there’s the weather: the electronic components of Ngo’s battery-powered wheelchair do not play well with rain.
All of this means Ngo is effectively cut off from using public transport in their local area, forced to rely primarily on accessible taxis, which are often unavailable and substantially more expensive than public transport. Even with a multi-purpose taxi-card, a government program that subsidises 50% of the fare up to a $60 cap, a relatively short trip can be more costly.
“It takes us three times longer than everyone else to get somewhere because transport is so inaccessible,” Ngo says. “And sometimes it’s inaccessible to the extent that it’s impossible, as in, there is no way to get to your destination other than catching an accessible taxi.”
Ngo is one of a number of activists and advocates who have been fighting for years for fully accessible public transport in Victoria. For their most recent collective action in May, organised by the Disability Resource Centre, they dressed in skeleton costumes and blocked trams on route 19. It was a $100 round trip in an accessible taxi for Ngo to attend.
Fully accessible public transport is federally legislated under the Disability Discrimination Act. In 2002, standards came into effect requiring public transport in all states and territories to be fully accessible by the end of 2022.
That includes all tram, train and bus stops, and captures everything from access paths, ramps, doorways and lifts to toilets, surfaces, hearing augmentation, handrails and grab rails, lighting and signs. The major exceptions are the trams and trains themselves, for which states have another 10 years to roll over their stock.
But with six months to go, no state or territory is set to meet the deadline – and at the current pace of upgrades, some will not make 2032 either. A review into the standards, released in November, found the quality and quantity of information provided by the governments made it hard to assess how close they were to complying.
In Victoria, the most complete data is on the accessibility of tram services. A report published by the auditor general in October 2020 found that in 2018-19, only 15% of tram services delivered a fully accessible service of a low-floor vehicle at a level-access stop.
“[Department of Transport] has not met legislated targets for accessible tram infrastructure and cannot comply by 31 December 2022,” the auditor general wrote.
The report found Victoria was also at risk of not meeting the 2032 compliance date.
“DoT’s lack of a finalised strategy or a funded plan means it does not know when all tram services will be fully [compliant],” the auditor general wrote. “This may expose DoT and Yarra Trams to disability discrimination complaints (and as a result, financial risk) from affected individuals.”
‘Invisible and unsupported’
Martin Leckey has experience in taking legal action over public transport accessibility. A wheelchair user since a car accident in 1985, Leckey first made a transport complaint under the Disability Discrimination Act in 2002 when the timetable that lists which buses were accessible on his local route was removed.
Since then, Leckey has been an active campaigner. The snail’s pace of change has been particularly hard to countenance, with campaigners waiting decades for some high-priority upgrades, such as the Clifton Hill interchange.
“Because it’s an interchange between bus, tram and train, it’s an important stop to be accessible and it’s also quite unsafe,” Leckey says. “We’ve been campaigning about that ever since 2002 as well.”
In the most recent state budget, the Victorian government pledged to build accessible tram stops along La Trobe Street and at the Park Street interchange, as part of a $96m package. The Clifton Hill interchange was not part of that plan.
Leckey is critical of the decision to focus on La Trobe Street. “It’s a very short route and the thing is there aren’t any low-floor trams on that route. It doesn’t make any sense,” Leckey says.
“It seems tokenistic and it’s insulting to people with disabilities. It shows how much priority they’re giving us. It’s very disappointing.”
A Victorian government spokesperson told Guardian Australia that low-floor E-class trams began running along the route in 2020, but the Yarra Trams website says route 30, which runs along La Trobe Street, is currently not serviced by low-floor trams.
“Ensuring our public transport network is accessible to all Victorians is a priority, and we know there is more to be done which is why we’re continuing to deliver projects that make a difference,” the spokesperson said.
“Accessibility is built into every transport project from every train, tram and bus order to state-shaping transport projects in our $90bn big build.”
“Since 2014, we have delivered significant accessibility improvements through the construction of 44 new or upgraded train stations, 81 level access tram stops, 2,843 new or upgraded bus stops, and hundreds of new and accessible trains, trams and buses.”
According to government figures, low-floor trams make up about 40% of the tram fleet, and just over a quarter of tram stops support level access boarding.
The Department of Transport was due to release a strategy at the end of last year that would map the route to full tram accessibility, including priority stops for upgrades, but it never materialised. The Victorian government did not respond to questions about whether the strategy was completed or whether it would be released.
The issue goes far beyond wheelchair accessibility, says Ally Scott, a campaign officer from Melbourne’s Disability Resources Centre.
“It doesn’t just impact people with disabilities. It impacts our elders, people pushing prams, it impacts people with temporary disabilities – [Victorian premier] Daniel Andrews, when he had his accident, would have been one of them. Anybody who has mobility issues cannot use much of our public transport,” Scott says.
The lack of accessibility keeps people isolated and in poverty, she says.
“There’s such a huge intersection of disability and poverty – these are people who cannot own a car, they often can’t drive a car or can’t run a car. Taxis are incredibly expensive, even with a multi-purpose taxi card.
“It’s not allowing them to access work, education or connect with their family. And on the other side of Covid, where community connection is essential, people are just stuck at home.”
The Greens’ transport spokesperson, Sam Hibbins, says fully accessible public transport is a matter of justice, equality and environmental principles.
“The impact of this on people with a disability is that they’re locked out of fully participating in society. They’re either stuck at home or having to rely on expensive polluting forms of private transport,” Hibbins says.
“We need a rapid increase in upgrades across the entire network. At the current rate the tram network won’t be accessible until the 2060s.”
Leckey is about to embark upon a one-man protest at one of the inaccessible tram stops near his home in Carlton North, which he intends to keep up every sitting day until the government agrees to fund an upgrade.
“It’s very frustrating to be waiting this long – still nothing since the standards came in,” he says. “It’s totally unacceptable and disappointing.”
The government doesn’t appear to be listening to people with disabilities, Ngo says. “If they are, they’re not doing anything about it, which is kind of the same as not listening. … It just makes us feel even more invalidated, and invisible and unsupported.”
