My name is Shawna Mattinson and I was born with Cerebral Palsy, which has put me in a wheelchair for most of my life. I lead a very active life between working out, writing, and being an advocate in my community.
I have been in Calgary all my adult life and I mostly rely on Calgary Transit Access. I do acknowledge that they are an overworked shared ride system and most of the drivers are very personable. Some of the issues I have with not being able to use accessible cabs is that if I want to go anywhere I have to know at least 2 days in advance. The system is not set up for me to decide to go out for dinner the day of. Often times I miss the end of a movie because Calgary Transit Access shows up and if you don’t go, you don’t get a ride home. I once arrived for dinner an hour and a half late (my bus was running behind schedule) and ordered my food, just as they set my dinner down in front of me, there was access Calgary back to pick me up at my scheduled time. One time when I was coming home from a vacation I was picked up at the airport and the driver took me quite a ways out of my way knowing that because of few Accessible Taxis I really had no choice. My friend who lives about 5 minutes from me and didn’t need an accessible taxi arrived home with a $55.00 cab fare and mine was $92.00. (In case you are wondering why we didn’t share the cab, I was traveling with another friend and we had a lot of luggage).
With the lack of accessible cabs, I often have to leave my Electric Wheelchair at home along with my independence. I have many great friends that will take me out but I have to use a manual chair and I am at their mercy help me do even the simplest of tasks like getting myself to the washroom. If there were more accessible cabs, my life would be a lot brighter and I would be able to more actively participate in activities in and around Calgary.
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