An open letter to London City Council as they continue budget deliberations…
Members of city council,
As I am sure you are being inundated with budget requests (demands?) I promise to keep this weekend missive brief. To put things in the simplest terms possible: while I fully understand the immense budget pressures you are currently facing it is vitally important that you fund the LTC’s request for increased Paratransit funding.
As a service, Paratransit has been underfunded for decades with ridership growth that often outstrips annual budgetary increases, leaving the LTC with an ever-smaller cup to bail out a ship that is rapidly taking on water. Over the past few years, both in the press and on the doorstep, you have heard the real-world impacts of these budget constraints—disabled Londoners are quite literally being excluded from daily life, medical appointments, and employment. Yes, there are some serious logistic and systemic limitations that constrains our system but, at the end of the day, chronic underfunding is a core driver of our current predicament. We are actively disabling Londoners by underfunding Paratransit and you have an opportunity to reverse this trend.
While I will not be able to join you tomorrow in person, I ask that throughout the public consultation process you take a moment to look upon the crowd and ask: How many disabled Londoners wanted to attend but were unable to get a ride? How many voices are missing from this conversation because of past decisions? Are disabled Londoners really equal citizens in this municipality if we cannot get rides to participate in our democratic processes?
Please enable Londoners by funding Paratransit.
Jeff Preston, PhD
