Transportation

Individuals cannot pursue their personal goals without access to transportation. Since its founding in 1976, CCD has been working to remove obstacles to the mobility of persons with disabilities from the modes of transportation within federal jurisdiction—air, rail, inter-provincial bus, and marine. CCD seeks the adoption of enforceable accessibility regulations for these modes.

CCD's Transportation Committee monitors the services provided by transportation carriers, contributes to legislative reform, shares knowledge on access with researchers, challenges discriminatory transportation practices in the courts.

Recent Work

December 14, 2018

VIA RAIL SELECTS SIEMENS CANADA TO REPLACE ITS QUÉBEC-WINDSOR CORRIDOR FLEET

 VIA Rail Canada is moving forward in our plan to acquire a new fleet for the Quebec City – Windsor corridor. This acquisition represents a $989 million investment towards safe, modern, accessible, and comfortable trains to ensure our customers love the way they travel. Read more.

July 10, 2018

Reducing Greyhound Transportation Services Could Have Domino Effect

 “The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) was dismayed to learn that Greyhound has announced plans to shut down its operations in parts of Canada, because this withdrawal of service will put in jeopardy the range of safe, independent choices available to the travelling public, including people with disabilities,” states Bob Brown, Co-Chairperson CCD Transportation Committee.  Read more.

March 15, 2018

Bill C-49 Empowers Goliath and Takes Away David's Sling Shot

Bill C-49, the Transportation Modernization Act, will make some aspects of Canada’s federally regulated transportation system more inaccessible than it already is for people with disabilities. Travelers with disabilities routinely encounter accessibility barriers, such as damaged or delayed mobility equipment, kiosks without audio output to make them accessible to blind travelers.  If passed without amendment, Bill C-49 while adding new barriers, will also make it harder for organizations like the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, a national organization that has been working for more than 40 years in support on an accessible and inclusive transportation system, to take complaints in the public interest to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA). “We are dismayed that Bill C-49 is introducing new barriers at a time when the current Federal Government is about to introduce accessibility legislation designed to make Canada more accessible and inclusive,” states Bob Brown, Chairperson of the CCD Transportation Committee.  On March 20, 2018, CCD will be appearing before the Senate Committee on transportation calling for the removal of these new barriers to mobility of persons with disabilities in the federally regulated transportation.  Read more.

More on Transportation

March 14, 2018

Transportation Modernization Act (Bill C-49)

January 19, 2018

Delta Airlines Inc. v Gábor Lukács

November 13, 2017

Presentation to Senate Committee on Transport and Communications (Special study connected and automated vehicles)

February 21, 2017

A Long History of CTA Inaction in the Establishment of Accessibility Regulations

November 18, 2016

SPEAKING NOTES FOR TRANSPORTATION ROUNDTABLE

November 16, 2016

CCD Says Regulations Are Necessary to Increase the Accessibility of Passenger Transportation

Transportation Archives