In your travels
around the city, it’s just possible that you saw or met Roger
Roberts, although you may not have learned his name. He may have
been sporting an odd hat -- perhaps with pins or badges stuck to it
-- and was aboard a large electric scooter. Maybe you saw him riding
the subway, or smoking a cigar outside his downtown apartment
building, or at Nathan Phillips Square having a friendly chat with
strangers, or perhaps a passing politician.
Roberts, the
long-time chair of the TTC’s Advisory Committee on Accessible
Transit (ACAT), passed away last week. The committee brings together
transit officials and the disabled patrons of both Wheel-Trans and
the TTC’s conventional bus and subway service. It might not be too
much to call him an ambassador, or at least someone who had a knack
for informing people about what it’s like to move through the city
when you find simple mobility a challenge.
He taught me a
great deal about getting around on four small wheels, all in a
manner which bypassed both ignorance and emotion. Somehow, it became
much easier to visualize what’s involved in negotiating stairs,
subway platforms and trains.
I had a chance
to interview him for an In Transit column last year, and often saw
him at TTC meetings. This was despite a list of serious physical
ailments that could have kept him in bed. Instead he would attend
meetings between hospital appointments, and I’m sure I wasn’t the
only person inspired by his good-natured will to contribute.
He could report
the infirmities he was enduring, and then follow this with a
wisecrack. His attitude to illness was remarkable, like a football
player running down the field with the ball, undeterred by having
the entire opposing team hanging off him. Where did this strength
come from?
Something deep
but simple also fuelled the man’s generosity and interest in
volunteering. He was part of many committees, although he eventually
had to whittle them down -- eventually focusing his attention on
ACAT. Roger stated that he began his volunteering career -- and it
was a career -- at age six, helping his teacher by cleaning erasers
outside. Through 55 years of wanting to give, he earned awards,
plaques, citations and more, including the City of Toronto’s
“Volunteer of the Year Award” in 2003.
Although
intimately concerned with the TTC’s door-to-door paratransit
service, Roger preferred travelling on the regular network, saying
the “conventional system is spur-of-the-moment -- you don’t have
that with Wheel-Trans.” Roger and other advocates have been an
important factor in making the larger transit system more
accessible.
I once asked
him why this was so important, despite the high cost and slow
progress. He replied, “I would say that it makes you feel less
disabled.” Travelling with able-bodied transit riders was beneficial
all around, he said, as it would “make for a better attitude toward
the disabled when they see that -- except for the wheelchair or
whatever -- we’re just like them.” Thanks for giving so much, Roger.
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