At Irene’s Pub , a sign with the bar’s phone number is plastered on the window.
The poster lets customers know the neighbourhood pub is accessible to wheelchair users, despite the step at the front entrance.
“If anybody is out there, the bar is busy and we’re not able to see them, they can just call the number and we can bring the ramp out,” says Irene’s Pub owner Michael Estabrooks.
The portable ramp at Irene’s was custom-made for the bar, but other businesses in the Glebe are receiving free ramps from the Glebe Business Improvement Area as part of an initiative to make the neighbourhood easier to navigate for everyone, said the BIA’s executive director, Darrell Cox.
“We’re looking at the current state of accessibility in the Glebe and how to improve on it,” Cox said.
The BIA’s impetus for rolling out the ramps on Bank Street is this month’s arrival of more than 300 wheelchair athletes.
From Sept. 9 to 19, the International Wheelchair Basketball World Championship will draw 336 athletes, 1,200 participants, 28 teams and thousands of visitors from around the world to the nation’s capital.
The games are held at two main locations, Lansdowne Park’s TD Place Arena, on Bank Street a few doors down from Irene’s, and Carleton University’s Raven’s Nest, a few kilometres away.
Preparations for the influx are already making the Glebe, one of Ottawa’s oldest multi-use neighbourhoods, a little bit more accessible.
A neighbourhood audit
The first step in the program was a neighbourhood accessibility audit of the Glebe, which stretches from Lansdowne Park to the Queensway, and includes some 300 businesses along Bank Street, one of Ottawa’s main thoroughfares.
The audit examined how easy it was to enter each store, as well as the experience inside the establishment.
It revealed that almost 40 stores currently meet accessibility criteria. This includes having ramps, proper door widths and a layout that allow mobility devices to move comfortably.
“The newer businesses in the Glebe, especially those closer to Lansdowne, had mostly met the criteria because they were built (more recently),” Cox said.
But a stretch of older storefronts at the heart of the neighbourhood didn’t.
“What we found is that in the more central area of the Glebe — with the older stores — that’s what we focused on to get those ramps,” Cox said.
While businesses could choose to have ramps for accessibility purposes, changing the width of a door is more challenging.
“We understand that just from the way these buildings were built and designed, they (were) not looking at accessibility in the same way that we are now,” Cox said.
Old buildings need upgrades
Estabrooks, who has worked at Irene’s for 15 years and owned it for five, says the Glebe BIA reached out earlier this year ahead of the championships.
But he has been thinking about accessibility for years, he said. The building is decades old, and it wasn’t the first time that efforts were made to break down accessibility barriers.
Seven years ago, Estabrooks says Irene’s renovated its main-floor washrooms to make them accessible, removing stairs from the equation.
Estabrooks had also hoped to install an accessible mechanical door during a recent renovation, but it wasn’t possible at the time. It’s still on the horizon, he added.
Narrow sidewalks a challege
The Glebe, as a walkable neighbourhood, presents another challenge that makes it difficult for businesses to keep the accessibility ramps outside around the clock.
“Any sort of impact that our ramp would have on the front is no good,” says Estabrooks, adding that the sidewalks are too narrow in various stretches of the neighbourhood to leave the ramp out.
“We can’t change the doorway and we can’t impede (pedestrian traffic) on the sidewalk, so this is our lowest impact, highest probability for success,” he said, referring to the sign out front to call for assistance.
For Ollie Quinn, an eye-wear brand located in the Glebe, the ramp provided by the BIA last year has made a difference.
The store has an entrance approximately seven inches (17.5 cm) above ground, making it difficult for customers with wheelchairs to roll in, manager Tylar Wilson said.
But the bright green ramp provided by the BIA free of charge last year has made a noticeable difference.
Before it was in place, staff would direct customers around the building to a flat-grounded entryway on the other side of the store, Wilson said.
“We always love to help people who need it, and just people in general,” he added.
Several other Glebe businesses already have ramps through the BIA program, including St. Rita, Third Avenue Spa, Feleena’s Mexican Cantina, Ollie Quinn, Lotus of Siam, Fairy Dreams Bridal, Glebe Central Pub and Knifewear.
In all, approximately twenty businesses will have ramps available to them by the time the championships start on Sept. 9.
“This will be a legacy of the championships,” she said, “because the businesses would now have those ramps, not only for the event itself for those 11 days it’s here, but also ongoing from there.”
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