Disability Dialogue: Connecting to Community – Safe and Accessible Transport

Speaker 1  0:15  
The Disability dialog project presents connecting to community safe and accessible transport. This webinar was recorded on May 16, 2025 and explores the reality of using and engaging with transport as a person with a disability and what safe and accessible transport means. Hosted by Ellie Demarchelier, this event features guest presenters, Todd Winther, Emma Myers, Jared, simkus, Kwong Nguyen and Dr Lisa Stafford, this audio presentation of connecting to community safe and accessible transport is produced by Vision Australia radio.

Speaker 2  0:54  
Hi and welcome. My name is Elida martellier. I'm a woman in her 30s. I have copper red hair. I'm wearing a white suit, and I'm so excited to welcome you back to another open dialog. I want to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we gather. I am on the land of the jagara and turrible people. I recognize their continued connection to the land and waters of this beautiful place, and acknowledge that they never ceded sovereignty. I respect all elders and ancestors and any First Nations people here today, for those who have not been to one of our events before, think of it as a live show where you control the conversation. It is designed to be inclusive, accessible, collaborative, respectful, and, most importantly, fun. We encourage you to have your camera on if you feel comfortable with that, we are trialing a new format today where we hear from our amazing speakers for about 50 minutes, then we take a 10 minute break. We will then spend the last 30 minutes with an open question and answer format, allowing you to have your say throughout the whole event, we'll be watching the chat and keeping a list of questions asked. You are welcome to join the conversation with the chat. We know that it is difficult for some people, so remember, you can open or close the chat by clicking on the chat icon on the bottom of your screen at any time, a little background about us. The Disability dialog is a project to promote inclusive, collaborative disability led conversations. Before we start, I want to shout out to our partners, Dana, inclusion, Australia, Alliance, 20 Melbourne Disability Institute. We are funded through an information linkages and capacity building grant from the Department of Social Services. I want to acknowledge the support of the community broadcasting foundation. Also shout out to Powerd community broadcasting association of Australia and Vision Australia. So what's today's discussion all about? We want to talk about how people with disability get around this is part of our series of discussions around the idea of belonging and community connections, last time we spoke about making and maintaining friendship. This time, we want to build on that, to recognize that one of the basic rights for all people should be one of mobility. We recognize this by building roads, supporting public transport systems that link people between where they live, where they work, and where they participate in the community. But what happens when those networks are not available to everyone? What are the human costs of mobility, exclusion, and what do we all lose when systems lock people out of being active participants in their community? Let's do an icebreaker for everyone here today. Can you post in the chat? What is your favorite mode of transport? What do you love the most while you're doing that? Let me introduce our wonderful panelists for today's discussion, Emma Myers, Todd winter and Jared simkas, first. Emma is a writer at. And disability advocate who lives in Canberra. She is the first disability rights and political reporter at Howard where she works. Emma, do you want to give us a visual description? Um, sure.

Emma Myers  5:14  
Hi. This is Emma talking from Powerd media and and I, I'm wearing a set of pink glasses. I have blonde hair and a floral white shirt.

Speaker 2  5:35  
Dog Emma, what's your experience about getting around Canberra?

Emma Myers  5:41  
Well, for one thing, overall, it's been really positive, and I've come from being completely unable to travel independently to now only traveling independently on public transport. So I get around via the bus mainly, but when I have to go to Sydney or go back home, I take the train, although two weeks into moving to Canberra, I I was catapulted out of my wheelchair while going down the ramp that they they forwarded out of the bus, and it resulted in the Bus being put out of commission until the bus company did a HR report, and everyone on the bus was very understanding, and just wanted to make sure that I was okay.

Speaker 2  6:55  
Oh, that's awful. That is not a good experience.

Emma Myers  7:01  
But the thing, I think the funniest thing, was that I didn't even I got work life, because I didn't even have time to register being on the ground before four army guys, four, four army guards charged out of the bus and picked me up and put me back in my wheelchair. So quite funny but sad at the same time.

Speaker 2  7:26  
Well, I'm glad you got some support there. Now to Todd, who is an advocate who cares about politics and disability rights and consults on the experience of people with disability. Todd, do you want to give us your visual description?

Todd Winther  7:43  
I am a man in his 40s wearing a blue shirt, and I use a motorized wheelchair for movement. I have got slightly gray hair, which I often say comes from being married.

Speaker 2  8:00  
I think that's entirely unfair to your wife. But Todd, what's your experience of getting out and about in Brisbane?

Todd Winther  8:08  
Well, you know yourself, Ellie, as a Brisbane local, that there are some good points about public transport and there are some bad points about public transport. But the main thing about getting around in Brisbane is the weather. Living in a typical climate using a motorized wheelchair, the weather and how quickly it can change is a massive barrier onto the actual public transport itself. I chose where I live deliberately because it's 500 meters from a train station, and most of the train stations in Brisbane are accessible, and luckily, in the Brisbane City Council area, all of the busses are which are accessible. One major problem, though, for me as somebody who uses a motorized wheelchair is that the busses don't have restraints, and so I consider my I consider the situation to be far too dangerous to travel in the bus on my own, so the only time I do use the bus is with my wife or with a support worker.

Speaker 2  9:29  
Yeah, fair enough. And now to Jared sinkers, who joins us from the north west coast of Tasmania. He is employed by speak out as a community educator, currently working on a new project called respect our ability. Jared is also currently participating in a reference group for a national international transport company. Jared's only mode of transport is public transport. Welcome to your first disability dialog, Jared, can you tell us what forms of transport you regularly use, and can you give us a visual description

Speaker 3  10:11  
so I'm Jared. I've got black hair, brown eyes like a brown white, kind of blue, blackish blue shirt with a bit of gold on it. And I usually catch a bus as my main form of transport.

Unknown Speaker  10:40  
And how do you find that? Jared,

Speaker 3  10:44  
it's kind of difficult reading timetables. But besides that, it's, yeah, my only issue is really timetables really because they're hard to read.

Speaker 2  10:57  
Well before the event, we ask people to feed in their experiences, and we will share some of the responses. Responses. I'd like to know that 50% of the people who filled in the survey identify as a person with disability, so we're getting good representation. The first slide is, what forms of transport do you use? Weekly personal car is by far the highest walking and train Metro coming in closely with second and third. We We still very much rely on our cars. Emma, does that surprise you?

Emma Myers  11:41  
Not really, because, as I said, I used to live in an area where there was no public transport available, especially no public transport available for people with disability and so um, so the fact that a lot of us still use their own, our own transportation. It's, it's really telling of the times, isn't it? It's, it's not we should get, we should have better transport than we do. Someone in the chat mentioned high speed trains, like the ones in Europe,

Speaker 2  12:24  
high speed trains has been raised like every year for the past two decades, and it never happened. Slide two is about what regular activities do you do that require transport as social activities comes out the highest, followed closely by work and medical appointments. It really shows Todd that transport is really essential to keep up those social connections, but also like to keep us connected to the world around us and keep us healthy. It's essential. Really, it's like, it's not like for something luxurious, it is for essential needs.

Todd Winther  13:11  
We talk about how the disability sector has evolved with the introduction of the NDIS, but this really speaks to the fact that we're only just starting to move out of the old phases of segregation, and this allows us to be contributors to the community, but it also says, particularly with the medical and health appointments that we need to do a lot more to build our social connections, and using transport is a key driver of that. So you can't really talk about inclusion without talking about transport.

Speaker 2  14:00  
Yeah, it's almost though. Todd, which comes first? Are we in in workplaces more and then the transport will follow? Or do we have to wait until the transports there for us to be employed? More? Like, which order does it have to come in? Do you think?

Todd Winther  14:19  
Well, that's essentially the chicken and the egg argument for the politicians. You can really only do one at a time. So it's basically, where do we as people with disabilities place as a priority? But also, how does society viewers as engaged and capable citizens. So it's always going to be an ongoing debate whether it's going to be the chicken or the egg.

Speaker 2  14:50  
You don't have a view on which to come first.

Todd Winther  14:53  
Well, I believe social connections and interactions are probably. Is the first priority, because it's from those social connections and interactions that we can develop our connections and further our opportunities economically, whether that be through work or otherwise.

Speaker 2  15:15  
All right, so, build the build the accessible transport. Okay? Next, we have some slides with some example quotes from the questions we asked. The first question was, what have you missed out on because of barriers to transport, university, places, jobs, events, social interactions, evening events came out a lot. I'm seeing friends, social groups, activities, medical appointments, work, friends, opportunities to participate in the community. Jared, it sounds like from these responses that people with disability miss out on a lot of things, because transport is inaccessible. What have you missed out on because of transport?

Speaker 3  16:09  
Well, I can't go see friends because, like, the transports not there to go visit them.

Unknown Speaker  16:18  
Yeah, and has that happened to you a lot?

Speaker 3  16:22  
Yeah, like, I would want to go see a friend, but I can't, because there's no busses that go out that way and that kind of thing, and there's no bus stops nearby them to be able to transport them.

Speaker 2  16:35  
How does that make you feel kind of

Speaker 3  16:38  
isolated, really, because I can't have that social connection.

Speaker 2  16:44  
Yeah, fair enough. That's how make me feel too. The next question we asked is, What are your two key barriers to using public transport, accessibility and availability in regional areas, lack of availability in regional areas, attitude and judgment of other commuters who cannot see my invisible disability, cost, long wait times, sensory issues, anxiety and panic attacks, the height of train platforms. I say here, here that one, access to taxis, no access to footcast. Don't get me started at that taxis. What was it like for you when you were a university student and trying to get to uni on public transport as a student was cluster factor? No, not

Todd Winther  17:48  
really, but I was in the regional area. I did University the Central Coast. Yeah, really ties in with a lot of the responses that we're seeing that the further you go out of the capital cities, the greater the issues are. The biggest barrier of traveling to uni essentially was there was no accessible public transport, so I had to rely on taxis. And because it was a regional area, there are only a few taxis, so unless you had a connection with a reliable driver, the weight would often be two to three hours, which would impact on all the other things. Like, you know how long you would say to do extra research or assignments and other personal care issues as well.

Speaker 2  18:42  
Yeah, the wait for a maxi taxi, it can be even in our major cities, can be extraordinary. Wait hours.

Todd Winther  18:52  
I recommend that with the time that I've wasted waiting for accessible taxis and everyone would be the same that I could write a whole university thesis, such as the length of time that is required with waiting for taxis, even in capital cities.

Unknown Speaker  19:15  
Yeah, absolutely. Well,

Emma Myers  19:17  
even even when, when I was living in the Hunt Valley, there was one taxi for my town, and I would have to know what I was going to be doing two weeks in advance in order to book that taxi, because if I booked it Just on the whim, I'd be tired, no, and then, and then June, during the work week, I couldn't book it either, because they were dropping children off that didn't even need these taxes. They just didn't want to take the bus.

Speaker 2  20:00  
Yeah, yeah, when you're relying on one car in a whole town, that's pretty, pretty hard. Well, thank you to our panel for now, but I'm going to bring you into the conversation a little a little later on. For now, we're going to hear from Dr Lisa Stafford, who has been doing really important research on transport and people with disability, welcome Lisa. We will post a longer bio and some links in the chat for those interested in learning more, but the short version is you have over 25 years of experience in research, education and community planning, your work is dedicated to using inclusive methods that ensure everyone's voices, especially children and those with complex communication needs, are heard in research and planning. Welcome to the Open dialog. It's great to have you here. Lisa, can you start by telling us a bit about yourself and the work

Speaker 4  21:10  
that you do? Yeah, no worries. And for people out there, so I've got blonde hair, I've got black glasses on today, a microphone that sort of looks Madonna ish with a green dress and grayish cardigan. And I'm coming from lutui to Tasmania, so like Jared down here on the island below, you know, south of Australia. So and, yeah, I'm so grateful to be here because transport is one of those things that, to quote, one of the young people that we've been working with talks about, it's a lifeline. It's a lifeline for people, and it's a lifeline for communities. And so it's been something, I think, personally, it started my interest in public transport. My mum didn't drive, so I lived in meanie. So I grew up in turrbal country on Brisbane north. So know that well, but I moved to Tasmania, and about five years ago, and and transport is one of those things that with we we don't, you don't realize how important is, until it's actually not there or or that, you know, the barriers. And I think for many people with disabilities, we live it daily, like it's something that we have to think about constantly, the fact that you can just wing up, you know, turn up to a bus and hope something comes it's just something we can't do. And so there's a lot of it, lot of conversations and stuff. And here's a picture of me with my dog, sage, because I love being out in nature. Like many of us, we love to go for walks. We use public transport for a lot of like transport, for a lot of things. So it's essential for everything. And I think that's one of the things, why I'm so passionate about the advocacy research that we do to not just, I think it's about it's not talking about the barriers anymore. It's about the change we need to do. We need to see in the decisions that have been made about transport and how Transport's been planned, and the service we get, and where the footpaths are going, and all that sort of information and why information is still not accessible, like what Jared said, it's, you know, it's, yeah, inexcusable, almost, so, so that's, that's a bit about me and why I'm interested in transport.

Speaker 2  23:53  
It is so critical. I know that often when we talk about transport, it's about access, not about the actual impact of being able to get around. In your research, you use the concept of trips not made to highlight the human experience. Can you elaborate

Speaker 4  24:13  
on this? For me, absolutely, I'm gonna. I've got some slides to share from it. And the concept actually came from a project before the trip's not made, that was an Anglicare Tasmanian project that I did. It actually came from work with my colleague, Dr Doran in erator in New Zealand. And this was a big project. It was about we had over 15,000 people with disabilities involved in that project. And what was really important is, as I mentioned, you know, we know the barriers we've been advocating for this for decades, what we need to do with decision makers, so people who are making decisions about what to invest in, about transport, whether that's trains or ferries or whether it's the water. Working and cycling infrastructure, such as paths. There's a lot of things that go into it. So what we started doing is we need to flip the conversation. We need to start talking about the impacts on people's lives. What are people missing out on? Like, what the question was like and so, and also the impact so that starts to show even further that this is not this is not a choice. This is a necessity. This is a basic essential service and infrastructure that is critical to not just individuals, social health study like learning, getting jobs, all this sort of stuff. It's also critical for communities. And we know that that's, you know, that's really important. So there's an image here, and this is some of the descriptions when we started to talk about what it was like to experience transport in Tasmania and and I must say, coming from Brisbane to Tasmania was, you know, there is only the bus. It's our only form of public transport. So when you think about regional transport, it's, it's really difficult, and then the experiences. So, you know that it's where the shelters, all these different experiences really impact us. And what was mentioned earlier about, you know, people feeling anxious. You know the anxiety about catching transport, the uncertainty of catching public transport, like the words that people talk to us about was untrustworthy, like they couldn't trust it, it was worrying and risky because of their experiences. Costly. I know Todd mentioned time, so, yes, costly in time, costly and actually money, so in income, and when we say income, it means people not being able to take shifts because there's no public transport available to them at that time, and also safety. So that's not just about risk of trips or falls, like what Emma, unfortunately experienced, and I had a similar experience, but mine was getting onto the bus, my ramp broke on me. You know, that does create safety feelings for us, but also, there's a personal safety about you know, do I feel comfortable sitting here waiting when I've got no Wi Fi? I can't use I don't have access. There's no signal on my phone. I'm waiting in this cold, wet areas with no lighting. So it's that personal sense of safety, too. So these are all really, you know, impactful. Can you just slip to the next slide for me and so? And so what we did was start capturing cable. These are the experiences across the whole journey. So what's the impact? And so, as we mentioned, social isolating, what Jared, you know, we've talked about so many people talk about that. It means losing connections with so many friends, or not being able to make those connections the night, night shift, so young people, or a whole range of different people have, you know, we don't work nine to five like so being able to catch or have transport that's outside hours was really significant. So people lost shifts, which impacts on the economy. We already know that people with disabilities, you know, there is significant cost already, so we're not able to take those shifts, and night shifts or weekend shifts. See, generally, when there's more money. So, like, there is a significant impact, there's an a cost. So it's not just being not being able to go it's the cost on the person, socially, physically, money. Appointments we had. People weren't able to take medical appointments and then or denied treatments, delayed treatments. These are real costs, and so this is why we started framing it as the trip's not made an impact, to start telling a different story. But this is not about people not using public transport. This is people having difficulties or aren't able to capture transport because it's not available, not not when they need and then the impacts that that's having on people's lives, and it's profound, and that's that advocacy work that we're doing now, yeah, so, but what also was really great is we talked about the Change not needed. So I'll just pause Ellie and then send that back to you about the trips not made.

Speaker 2  29:25  
Can I bring back our panel and maybe get their thoughts on what Lisa has said so far? Todd does anything from Lisa's research particularly stand out to you.

Todd Winther  29:46  
I think the economic impact of employment was a big one that dropped out to me because particularly what she said about working on weekends, because that's when we know. That public transport is the most unreliable and the main barrier for employment opportunities in the past, for me has been the ability to get to and from an office. We're very lucky now that I am fortunate to work from home in an environment where I don't have to use transport, but transport previously was one of the major barriers to why I could not work full time.

Speaker 2  30:35  
Yeah, I think that's been the experience for a lot of people with disability from working from home has saved them from having to experience public transport, and that's being one of the benefits of working from home. Jared, have you ever had to miss out on a shift at work because of public transport?

Speaker 3  31:04  
Not really, because, like, most of my shifts are during the day, so I don't really have that issue of, like, having no birth to get home. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2  31:23  
Did you hear anything that Lisa said that you thought was interesting?

Speaker 3  31:34  
Yeah, there was like about being in Tasmania, only having access to busses due to like, taxi has been too expensive and all that to like, use them.

Speaker 2  31:48  
Yeah, yeah, it's hard when there's only one mode of transport. Have you ever had a bus be canceled on you? Jared?

Speaker 3  32:04  
I have had a bus like, to break down once.

Unknown Speaker  32:10  
Was that challenging to, like, have to deal with? Yeah?

Speaker 3  32:14  
It was Yeah, yeah. It was pretty difficult, yeah. Yeah. And I'm, like, made me late kind of thing.

Speaker 2  32:24  
Yeah, that's frustrating. Emma, what were your thoughts from hearing what Lisa said around trips not taken?

Emma Myers  32:36  
I mean, all of the above. Get some. It's, you know, it kind of weigh up the pros and cons of going anywhere, because you know that you're going to have that extra challenge of getting there. So it's kind of like, oh, you're invited out to this party. But it's like, Okay, do you want to rely on someone else to drive you there, which you then asking yourself, or, What? What? What am I taking away from them and their day to day activity? Is it worth it? Like, is it worth is it worth me even going and am I gonna have a good time when I get there? So it's like, do I even bother trying to figure out transport in order to go somewhere that at the end of the day may not even be worth this the hassle of organizing transport to get to,

Speaker 2  33:53  
yeah, it is. It is a big barrier to overcome. But on to what we can do to try and rectify some of this. Lisa, what have people with disabilities in your work identified as the solutions and the change needed for people to use transport more regularly?

Speaker 4  34:23  
Yeah, thanks, Ali, Captain. You want to bring up the slide what we there's a whole range of conversations so, so we talked about, well, what are the things that would really help to so we could use it regularly? Because that was one of the things that people can't and not just public transport. So the term actives used quite a lot in transport world. What it essentially means is walking, riding your bikes, riding a scooter. It's the footpaths and pathways that connect you from your home to either public transport or to the shops and stuff like that. So to the conversation was about, how do. You know, get better at both those essential sort of services and infrastructure like that. And so part of the conversations was, we have to build trust back into using public transport. A lot of people with disabilities don't have trust. And that's part of that's about, you know, and that's not just the actual services and the routes. It's, you know, it's critical the infrastructure too, and that's starting with, is it easy to use? Can I actually read timetables? Can I plan my trips where it makes sense? Can I actually change my if something happens? Can I easily adjust where I'm going? So that whole trip planning they call it has to be easy to use, and currently, depending on where you live, for some it's it's really bad. For others, there's better technologies, but it's about making sure that people feel like they can use it, and the accessibility is really key, and accessibility is across the whole journey. So this is about the digital space. So a lot of the information about transport is online. You know, even if it's ride share and stuff like that, you've got apps all that sort of stuff. Is that accessible from not just making, you know, can I read, use, feel comfortable, getting around it? Can I actually, isn't my technology work with it? That's a big thing that came up quite a bit my existing technology. Does it work with it? And then all the other sensory elements that also sit with that. But we also, importantly found that that was with infrastructure, the whether it's the way the stations that you're waiting for, and that's not just about like the bus stops or the train stops, that the hard infrastructure. It's about lighting. It's about information. It's the audio and visual cues that everyone needs. It's being able to be able to access like client services. This takes for granted, and so young people are talking about, well, why aren't they QR codes or something like that on the bus that I can just put my phone and I can contact, you know, easy things that bring us closer to customer services if we need that support. Affordable is really critical. And I know brisbane's brought 50 cents tickets. I wish we had that down here. But, you know, it's get consistency. I know I was up there in a post, also shocked how cheap it was, like it was so good. So having that consistency, and just because you live in the outer suburbs, where many people do live, because we know housing and transports deeply connected around affordability, you can't be disadvantaged having to pay higher amounts if you're living in those areas, because that's where housing is, and that's really critically important. So that's some of the stuff we talked about. And has to meet diverse needs of users like so as we talked about examples, so I want to go on dates at night. Can I get transport like? These are real things that you know, if your transport stops at 6pm that impacts on your social and your relationships. It's the same with, you know, as Emma talked going out, you know, and we already talked about, like, with work, so they're really important. It's, you've got to plan it with people. People are saying, you know, it's all right. It might look good on paper, but come out and actually talk to people. You know what we've always advocated for, like, in every service area. It's the same with transport. It has to be designed with people who are using it or who want to need or want to use it. We've got to explore more options community transport on demand services, not just these main routes that transports really move to because they're cost efficient, we actually have to make sure that we're actually getting some door to door support for people, getting them from home to the stations and stuff like that. Many people can't use ride share or not available. I know there was a mention about in the Northwest, where charities, there is no wheelchair accessible taxis at the moment, like that. So it really does restrict so we need to do that stronger partnerships within communities and using resources. This came up a lot, you know, there's a lot of, you know, 1220, seater busses sitting around after 5pm like, how do we get better as a society? To, how do we get better at using these community resources that are there, and that came up quite a bit in more regional areas where access to both the public transport is not as strong. Equity was really important. We always talk about access, but equity is different. Like this is about making sure that acknowledging that people have different needs and. At work, creating and designing for those needs. You know, it's not about the greater good for the greater number. This is about everyone's rights to being able to have access to transport, and how do we make sure that we're actually meeting those needs, and particularly for the most at risk or discriminated groups of people. So that was a really important focus in transport. Currently, we don't have a good working definition of transport equity, and particularly in Australia, that's my next project that we're just starting is actually creating a better transport equity model for people with disabilities to help inform how transport is planned and the decisions that they're making around investment. Because we know equity is important for our rights. People talk about access, participation, importantly, independence. And I know Emma used that term independence and that freedom, you know, freedom to choose and to what I want, what I want. You know, this is, as we talk about, some people don't even have to think about that, where, for many, you know, wouldn't that be awesome? And and that's what we heard quite a bit. So there were three, and then the next one, if you cat, goes the next slide was changing the story and the culture about public transport, and this comes back to benefits, not about the costs. We always think, Oh, these services cost. People aren't using them. So changing the story to note the benefits. These are critical services and supports where the benefits are immense to not just people, but communities, you know, but to start doing that, to getting that changing. The story is that we've got to make better systems and to help build our trust back into those services. But essentially, yeah, it's the benefits and impacts that are so critical to making change, I'm

Speaker 2  42:02  
going to ask Todd and Emma a question that I'm keen for everyone in the chat to put their responses in, and maybe after the break, I'll read some of the responses out. If you were in charge of these systems, what would you change? First? What would you go in and change? Number one, priority day number one. You're the new transport minister. What would you change? Emma?

Emma Myers  42:34  
Oh, can't Todd, go first.

Todd Winther  42:37  
I'm glad you picked Emma first look.

Emma Myers  42:42  
I don't think anything can be solved in one day. You know, it's, it's a gradual, it's a gradual, continuous, I will say, I feel better, but I'd love it. I'd love it if we could get the fast trains going. But I also love it to see every single every single station have have accessible boarding, because there's only about 15% and I think I'm using that percentage quite loosely, of train stations that with that those with mobility issues can get on and off, and even then, it's not perfect, Like I went home for Christmas and took an order, an order train from Central Station, and they loaded me into the gangway, and that is where I sat for two and a half hours, the the bit where, you know, I'm sitting in my chair on the hinge of the carriages being asked to move backwards and forwards to let people in the train because I couldn't fit through the door of the carriage. That was, that was, that was the really, really hard thing for me to wrap my head around. I would have probably been put in the animal cart, had it written, had they been able to so, yeah, definitely. Trains, train accessibility and a wider accessible bus, accessible busses around the country, because in Canberra, they've done it in Canberra, all of the busses of Canberra are now fully accessible. People, but they need to be accessible fully around the country,

Speaker 2  45:05  
all right. Well, Emma went first one. So now's your turn. What would you change first if you were in charge of the transport system?

Todd Winther  45:13  
Well, well, Emma's right in saying, Well, you can't change anything tangible in one day. But as I always say, in a number of issues, growing up as a person with a disability, we were constantly taught how to fit into an accessible world. I think we can start by educate. I'm sorry. We were constantly we were constantly told, as a disabled person, how to fit into the mainstream world. I think it's fine that the mainstream world were educated about what it means to be disabled, and forums like this are a good opportunity, but education programs such as the terrific work that Lisa is doing need to be rolled out in a wider setting, so that the whole community can understand both the economic and the social impact of What these choices can actually create. There's that old cliche about having a minister spent spending a day in a wheelchair. It's not about that. It's about going deeper and understanding what, what is it really like inside our minds and the choices that we make and the trade offs that we have to constantly bargain for, not only with transport with but with every other issue every single day of our lives.

Speaker 2  46:51  
Yeah, well, you both make very good transport ministers. By the sound of it, we're now going to do a 10 minute break to give everyone time to digest what we've learned. We hope you will stick around and join us for the open discussion coming up during the break, we're going to post a question on your screen. This is totally optional. The question is, if you could make one type of transport mode accessible. Which would it be? And feel free to post in the Chat how you would want to make it more accessible. But if you could choose one to make it totally accessible, which mode would you want to make completely accessible? I was just interested in what people would prioritize. So feel free. Oh, it looks like there's going to be a little bit for everyone, but I'm interested to see how the polling goes, and enjoy your 10 minute break. I'll see you in 10 minutes.

Speaker 2  48:01  
Hello. Welcome back, everybody. I hope you got a cup of tea if you needed one, a toilet break and just a stretch of the legs. That's a weird thing for me, of all people in a wheelchair, to say. But you know, whatever you needed? I hope you got it. I'm really excited to welcome you back. I asked if you could make one type of transport mode accessible, which would it be? It really came in like, like, very close between public busses and trains and like taxi, Uber, rideshare, they were the top three, and they're very close together, um, with community or service provider bus not far behind. It kind of seems like you want all of them to be accessible. Wouldn't that be a funny thing? Like, how about that? What about if all modes of transport were accessible? I think that's the message you're sending, so I wouldn't find that. I thank you for everyone who participated in that and participated in the chat over the break. That was great to see. I'm now going to bring in Kwang. Kwang is the chairperson for council with for intellectual disability, and has been recently on the Disability Council at accessible transport Advisory Committee. Kwang is non verbal, so he's going to present by His support worker, Noah, and explain his role in trialing the replacement busses for the new metro line in the southwest Sydney. Over to you, Kwang and Noah, awesome.

Speaker 5  49:58  
Thank you so much. Ellie. Yeah, so just me and Kong and I here, sorry, no problem, yeah, Kong and I here talk about qualms, experience with sort of, I guess, transport and his thoughts and sort of insights into that. So quang's expressed here that he attends meetings with the at AC. Oh, sorry, sorry, I'll read him from Kong's perspective, Hong has said, I attend meetings with the at AC, where I'm able to raise questions, make suggestions about projects. Sometimes I also email comments and feedback to the ATAC team. And Paul's also written he hadn't sorry I hadn't seen the color coding before. This was Newton Coleman's also said I traveled the train line between my home and city a lot. I usually travel along the line that is currently closed because of the building of the Inner West Metro. Fight. The pink color of the busses let me know very easily that it is different. It's accessible. They let me know that they are the ones I need to watch for if I want to travel to a station that is along the line where the Metro is being built. Bombs also given some feedback on sort of the preparedness when it comes to emergency. Oh, sorry, sorry. Kong hasn't given any feedback by understanding Hong bills, their sense of how prepared they are for emergency is inadequate. Bob's been asked as well, how he prepares for the extra time needed for the replacement bosses, which we all know that they can that's happening quite a lot, whether it's due to, you know, train workers unionizing, or track repairs, anything like that. And Quang has written here, I need to make extra time for planning my travel with my support worker. Huang and I usually communicate by text message or WhatsApp. He uses WhatsApp a lot, but that sort of communication. Kwong has also said, my support worker helps me to work out the right bosses and to plan for the extra time taken for travel on replacement busses. I also need to make a time when my support worker is available. Hong's really great at that sense of communication. He has been missing all the support workers. Yeah, he's a very busy person, but he's very organized. And yeah, I really appreciate getting to collaborate with Kong in those sort of spaces. And yeah, make his day happen the way that he wants it to amazing.

Speaker 2  52:58  
Thank you, Kwong and Noah, what a team you guys are. Thank you for that. Thank you, Kwong, for your insights. We are going to jump back to our panelists and to Lisa, if you have any questions for our panel and for Lisa, please, right now is the chance to put them in the chat, and I've got a backstage team that's ready to pass them along to me, and I can throw them to our panel and to Lisa, Lisa, I did want to ask you about foundational supports. Foundational supports are going to be supports that are outside of the NDIS. How can foundational supports play a role in providing transport beyond just saying public transport needs to be accessible?

Speaker 4  54:00  
Yeah, I think it's a it's one of those things that's a bit of not a worry. But I think we need to advocate really strongly that whether in or out of the NDIS, you should have access to transport. What that looks like for you. I think foundational sports is interesting. We talk about building capacity, and there's some good examples that that are happening. It's not like it's all bad, like, there's some really good like, what cons talked about, you know, and also, you know, Jared mentioned being on committees. Like, there are at lower ground, like at the local level, some good examples where, you know, like, have a try day, and building capacity about how people can feel confident in using transport and stuff too, like, these are really important ways to support people travel. It's not just, you know, you just rock up and you know, and can use transport. So building capacity is. And what we talked about, like building trust, like that was really important. So these are some ways that some supports around building that capacity, that people feel confident, feel comfortable, can actually have some work around, you know, if the systems aren't accessible, like, what are some solutions to that that people can use that will make their experience better, whether that's sorry Jared to speak about this, but currently, you know, the timetables are in PDF, in in Tassie, and that is really difficult, and the way it's written, and this has been advocated a long time, people have talked about that, so a simple version would be word and pictorial supports and time savers. So there's all different things that aren't really not expensive, that can be addressed to improve a person's comfort and experience. So that's some originally thoughts. Is that building capacity and how we do that, also knowing what's available to you, like it's really hard to know taxi vouchers or subsidy cards. There's so much different stuff, and it's different state by state. So how can we use ways that, regardless of you know your needs, that you know that you're able to access the supports that are available. So whether it's a subsidy,

Speaker 2  56:28  
yeah, can we please make it easier to apply for these things? I i use taxis, but I don't have the subsidy vouchers because the form has to, I have to get two doctors to sign off that I'm disabled. And I feel like, if I'm on the NDIS, that should be proof enough that I am disabled. And so, like, if I have an NDIS plan, that should be enough to then just like, get me the taxi subsidy. Like, these things should talk to each other, so then I'm not constantly having to prove that I'm disabled when I've been disabled since birth. Like, you know this thing isn't going away anywhere. Like, I just feel like these systems need to talk to each other, I don't know

Todd Winther  57:24  
also, really, I'd like to take that one step further and say, why don't we nationalize the tax city subsidy? Oh, yeah, the discount is the same for all the states, because in some states it's 75 in some states it's 50. If we nationalize the freaking NDIS, we can nationalize the taxi subsidy scheme.

Speaker 2  57:57  
When you're traveling for work and you're in a different city, the taxi driver is constantly saying, Do you have the taxi subsidies like scheme, because they want the lift charging fee. And I'm like, I have, like, but I'm not from here. I can't get it. And then they won't take you in the taxi because they won't get the lift charging fee. And you're like, but I literally can't get it here. I'm not a resident. And they're like, Well, I'm not taking you because I won't get my extra $20 and then you end up going, I'll pay the extra $20 and and this is every time. And I'm like, this has to be easier. Todd, I know you have done a lot of thinking about foundational support, and what are your thoughts on how we best utilize foundational supports to make transport easier?

Todd Winther  58:56  
Well, two things, one point is about nationalizing basic services that are equitable to all of us, but two the states really need to talk to each other and figure out an agreement and without getting too in the weeds and being overly political now that the government has got a clear mandate from the federal election, they should make foundational supports the number one priority of anything this government does related to the NDIS, particularly if they're serious about getting the scheme to be so called, more sustainable.

Speaker 2  59:44  
Lisa, we have a question. I'm going to I'm going to do something a bit different, which is, if people don't want to put their question in the chat and they actually have a thought that they want the panel and Lisa to respond to, I'm willing to. To open up the floor. So if you want to raise your virtual hand, I'm willing to throw to you for a thought that the panel can respond to if you find putting a question in the chat too difficult. So that's another way that you can get involved in this conversation. But there's a question that's come in from Cathy. Tell Lisa, what do we do for the one in four people who are not digitally included by if only trip planning is on an app, plus, can everyone do and know how to access the internet compared with being at home. Non digital answers must also be included.

Speaker 4  1:00:48  
It's a really important point Cathy. And it's also not just about, you know, comfortableness of using the digital it's actually digital digital divide, like people just don't have the funds to access the data as well. And, you know, so there's a range of different strategies they talked about. So some of it's like, you know, ensuring information is actually available at stations, like even stops and stuff like people talked a lot about, there is no information available for you on the sites and stuff like that. So simple things about putting them back, and I know that that's difficult when it's a pole in the ground, a lot of the stops, but there has to be some options, because a lot of places, and particularly in regional areas, you actually might not even have Wi Fi. This is a reality that so many people talked about, you know, so it has to, there has to be options, because it's, it's Yeah, because it really impacts. And what we heard a lot of is, it impacts if you're stuck somewhere to getting home, and if you're not in that familiar, or we talk about disruptions. So there has been some work about trying to, you know, have some strategies about disruptions, but a lot of that is like, you know, phone a friend or phone or support. So that's where some of the customer service examples came about as well. But, you know, the information alone, even if it's on the website and people download it, like your support, work and stuff, it has to be, like, readable. And that's, that's the other issue we talked about. Like, there was examples we're still using 24 hour, I think it's changed now, but there was examples of 24 hour timetables, like, not, you know, 12am or pm, but like 13 or 14. Like, this really complicated. And so we did some advocacy about, you know, making sure, because people forget about numeracy, is a really complicated thing as well, and a lot of numbers are in transport, so the cost and stuff like that. So yeah, we've definitely been advocating for them to think about that as well, to make it easier. And some of that's about text to talk, you know, all sorts of different stuff, which is still but the other thing we really advocated for was non non metered. So if you are putting stuff on websites that it should be non metered, as in, you don't need data to access it. That was some of the other things.

Speaker 2  1:03:20  
I have a question and answer here from Kwong. The question was, how do you go with communicating with transport New South Wales staff? And the response from Kung was, usually, with the assistance of my support workers, I will use this right device to communicate with my support worker, prompting them to contact transport New South Wales, asking to have a rent or any accessible equipment needed for me at a specific station. Otherwise, I can utilize my text to speech app to assist with communication I was wondering, Jared, I when I introduced you, I said you had a couple of jobs, and they sound so interesting to me. I was wondering, Jared, if you could tell me a little bit about your work.

Speaker 3  1:04:20  
Basically, the, obviously the speaker, which is what I've been doing, and basically I'm a community educator, and that basically means I go out into the community and teach people about like their rights and all that stuff. When it comes to certain things, like if they want to go shopping, I teach them about their rights, about that and all. That stuff

Speaker 2  1:05:01  
that's That sounds really interesting. You must meet a lot of cool people.

Speaker 3  1:05:06  
Yeah, I need a lot of great people.

Speaker 2  1:05:10  
That's awesome. I there's a comment that says walking, rolling and strolling is missing from the transport mode. If that was available, we would click that as everyone needs a footpath and safe crossing to get where they need to go, my train or bus might be accessible, but if I can't cross the road to the bus stop, it's not accessible. Do you maybe want to comment on that as hard?

Todd Winther  1:05:43  
Yeah, sure. And I think it comes down to a holistic approach, where we've got to communicate with local, state and federal governments, as Kirsten Dean said in their comments today, one of the major issues, particularly for me in a motorized wheelchair, is the width of the path, and particularly when I go to the older train stations in capital cities, the paths are so narrow and I'm so risk adverse that I don't even want to attempt to go on that footpath. And so if we're building a train station or upgrading bus stations, only half the work is completed. What is the infrastructure around a station flight and those reflects similar comments that Lisa has made in her presentation today and throughout her research.

Speaker 2  1:06:50  
Emma, I'll come to you on this one too, like I am sure you have reached the end of a pathway and there is no curb cut and it's like, how did they ever expect anyone to like, exit this pathway? Like inaccessible infrastructure in general, leads to inaccessible transport, because, you know, if you can't get out of the car safely. There was no point being in the car at all to begin with. What is your experience being of like those, those connecting modes, working or not working.

Emma Myers  1:07:36  
It's really funny news to bring that up, because i i i actually cast my vote in the last election at old Parliament House, and I experienced exactly what you just described. At the end of the footpath. There's a curb ramp on the other side, but not the side that I'm on, and and I had to go pretty much to the end of the street in order to cross the road, And it was just horrendous. But because I'm because I work in Parliament House, and because I use the busses to get myself around, I actually complain to to the Parliamentary Triangle Council, because I couldn't access the bus stops at the front of parliament house without having to drive on the road that all of the busses come down in order to get off the road into a car park and drive on grass to get up onto the bus stop, and I complained about it. And funnily enough, they're actually putting permanent pathways and rebuilding the entire bus stop as the winds speak. So if anything else, if if nothing else, I can say I've made a permanent change to Parliament House. Accessibility.

Todd Winther  1:09:28  
The symbolism of that is massive. If the most powerful institutions in the country aren't accessible, what happened we got for elsewhere?

Speaker 2  1:09:42  
Yeah, well, if we're going to have a whole caucus of disabled MPs, they're going to need an accessible way to get to work. So I had a person. It says from Kirsten. I'm assuming this is Kirsten ding, because it's. Absolutely a question. Dean, kind of comment, can we, and this is like a pet cave of mine, so much, along with shopping trolleys that lock wheels, can we also talk about scooters and E bikes being left everywhere on footpaths? Oh? My entire like, surrounding my building where I live is constantly being barricaded by like, e bikes and E scooters and trolleys just left everywhere, and I am, like, constantly trying to move these things, and they are heavy,

Todd Winther  1:10:43  
not to mention the people that drive them. Can you imagine going on a freeway and people don't know how to drive cars, and you're the only one who can drive a car? That's what putting up with Scooter drivers. With those

Emma Myers  1:11:00  
what about, what about, what about? My pet peeve when driving on the footpath is two people who take up the entire footpath and and, and you go, one way they go, one way you go. The other way they go the other way because they're in their own world, and the width of the footpath is fine. It's enough to fit like four people across, but two people, or even one person, takes up the entire footpath,

Speaker 2  1:11:35  
and they see you coming a mile off, and they decide to take that middle path, the fire. Way that attitudinal change would be so lovely, like, just to change that because the mental load that happened with driving a electric wheelchair, like, I'm like, I'm constantly having to think, if I run you over. You're going to blame me, even though it was you in the middle of the path the entire time, or you

Emma Myers  1:12:06  
can sidestep me, but you, but they stop and they wait for us to go around them.

Speaker 2  1:12:14  
It, I often think like what is going through these people's minds at the moment. It must be a very thoughtful conversation they had from before, because they are not in the present moment. I'll have the final question from coral. I'm interested to hear from Lisa's thoughts on the interaction between the promotion of active transport, ie, walking, cycling, etc, as opposed to driving and accessible urban environments. Are we there? Are there tensions between some of those different needs, and how can that be mitigated or resolved?

Emma Myers  1:13:00  
I think we're already on the topic of that. Now, I know I was gonna say

Unknown Speaker  1:13:05  
how many minutes.

Emma Myers  1:13:10  
You know one thing we haven't covered this entire session is another. Is another element on transport, cruising and and cruising accessibility,

Unknown Speaker  1:13:23  
yeah, and there I mentioned planes. We didn't even do flight. Yeah?

Emma Myers  1:13:33  
Oh, my God. That needs its own that needs its own dialog,

Speaker 4  1:13:37  
yeah, oh, look, just, I mean, I know coral, so it's a great question, and I think Anna and I think there's a couple of other comments that we're adding to that the long and the short is, obviously there's a part of it comes back to how our environments are planned, how are transports planned. And the biggest things that we can do is actually be not just part of those conversations, but really helping to shape the future of transport, like and the decision making so, and there's a lot in that. So that's what I mean. I'm trying to unpack that now, but there's, there's been work, and there is work. My next project, transport equity, is actually working on that. It's actually how people with displays and transport planners can work together to create better ways of thinking and decision making about the future of transport, and this includes pathways our walking, you know, the whole journey that we take. So the information, it's about the journey, and it's about, it's to write coral, and it's, it's about our experiences on whatever mode we're choosing, getting home and getting back. It's just closing those gaps, but importantly, working with the people who are on the ground having to make those decisions that, let's face it, there is. Really great amount of frameworks for them at the moment, and the way decision making is made is still very much skewed in it's very much about people without disabilities, which is crazy when you think of our population is so high, and our diversity, whether whatever we come with so so that's a big part of it, because it's about, it's how planning decisions are made, is a really key part of that. And it's not just service decisions, it's it's the planning that's a big part of I don't think I've answered it anywhere near what happens, but I think that's where people with disabilities can really get involved. So if you can be a part of transport committees, if you if you're passionate about this, if you can be a part of your local council committees, service providers like Jan myself have done, I know a lot of state governments have their own transport access committees. Like these are areas where you can influence, and I'll always also put out there is many of you can be a part of being transport plan. It's being part of the transport solution. So, brilliant people you are. So, you know, there's also that component too. So, yeah, I know that doesn't answer it, but just wanted to leave that with people. So it is in our hands, not just letting people tell us about it. So yeah, and some Kirsten just said, local, your public your local public transport user association is really good, whether it's the bus, trains, ferries, trams, light rail, they're all service providers contracted to deliver service and so, yeah, hassle them.

Speaker 2  1:16:44  
If I if we're good at anything, it is hassling local committees and local providers to get things done. People with disability are the greatest problem solvers on Earth. I say it, and I believe it, and we will solve these problems, even if we have to launch a mighty big campaign to do it. Thank you to our panel. Thank you to Lisa. Thanks Tod. Emma Jared, it's been a wonderful discussion. Finally, as we are running these events regularly, I'd love your ideas on topics you would like us talking about in future events. If you've got an idea, chuck it in the chat or reach out to us via email. These open dialogs are monthly events, so we hope that you will join us next month for more debate and discussion. We will take these ideas on board and let you know what next month's special subject will be. We'll be sending out a feedback form after the event, or you can click through now from the link in the chat. So please let us know your experiences and give us ideas of how we can make it more inclusive in the future, we always want to be improving and getting better. Also tell us what you like, because we'll do more of that. Thank you for such an engaged, engaging and lively event. It's been a great chat. You've all gotten involved next actually, next month, I can tell you what the what the theme is going to be. Next month, we're going to be looking at peer support and the importance of peer support, a very exciting topic. And Todd is going to be taking over as host. I can let you know that today was my last time as host of open dialogs. So I won't be seeing you next month, but Todd will be taking over. It has been an honor to host open dialog and I hope you have a great day. I'm Ellie Demar shellier, thank you so much.

Speaker 1  1:19:00  
That was an audio presentation of the disability dialog webinar, connecting to community safe and accessible transport. This project is a joint initiative of Dana inclusion, Australia, Alliance 20, and the Melbourne Disability Institute, and is funded through an information linkages and capacity building ILC grant from the Department of Social Services, DSS and grant funding from the community broadcasting foundation. For more details on this initiative and upcoming events, visit disability dialog.com.au. This has been an audio presentation produced by Vision Australia radio.