E-everything

 

 Infrastructure for e- everything

The AAC's (access advisory ) core complaint was never that e-scooters exist — it's that riders end up on sidewalks because the City hasn't built enough dedicated space to keep them off. 

That's an infrastructure failure, not a device-versus-device conflict. The same failure is what pushes seniors on mobility scooters into the same squeeze.

Bikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, and mobility scooters aren't competitors for space. They're all low-power vehicles that need dedicated, separated infrastructure to keep them out of conflict with pedestrians and with each other. 

I've ridden bikes as my primary transportation for over a decade, and the case for physically separated infrastructure isn't cyclist advocacy — it's the same accessibility argument the AAC has been making about scooters and sidewalks. 

If "connected mobility" is going to mean anything for seniors ageing in place in Rideau-Rockcliffe, a separated bike lane project has to come with a parallel accessibility standard for the pathway next to it — not as an afterthought, but as a condition of approval.

The City Already Has a Committee for this. It Was Overruled. Twice.

This isn't a hypothetical gap. Ottawa's Accessibility Advisory Committee — the body legally mandated to advise Council on accessibility for seniors and persons with disabilities — has already fought this fight, over a related issue: shared e-scooters on sidewalks and pathways.

Build the network right and every one of these groups stops competing for the same six feet of sidewalk.

What I'd Do Differently

• Require that any physically separated bike lane project include a parallel sidewalk/multi-use pathway accessibility standard — winter maintenance level, minimum width, curb-cut compliance — approved alongside the bike lane, not after it.

• Design separated active transportation infrastructure to accommodate the full range of low-power vehicles — bikes, e-bikes, e-scooters — so they're not forced onto sidewalks where they conflict with pedestrians and mobility scooter users.

• Treat Accessibility Advisory Committee recommendations with the same procedural weight as Transportation Committee or Transit Commission input, including a requirement that Council record and justify any vote that departs from an AAC recommendation on a safety matter.

• Put mobility scooters and low-power mobility devices explicitly into the City's "connected, accessible mobility" language — not folded silently into "active transportation," which in practice has meant cycling infrastructure this population is legally barred from using.

Vote for Peter Karwacki for Rideau-Rockcliffe.

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Sources: Ontario Highway Traffic Act guidance on mobility scooter classification (Halton Region Older Adult Advisory Committee fast facts; Globe and Mail); City of Ottawa Accessibility Advisory Committee mandate and meeting record; AODA Alliance report on AAC Motion AAC2022-1/20 and the June 21, 2024 AAC motion (aodaalliance.org); City of Ottawa "2024 E-Scooter Season and Extension of the Pilot Program," Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, March 27, 2025, and City Council, April 16, 2025; Capital Current reporting on the unanimous Council vote, April 29, 2025; Councillor Rawlson King newsletter, May 9, 2025 (rideau-rockcliffe.ca).