Stargardt’s disease, the most prevalent form of juvenile macular degeneration, causes progressive vision loss, with significant deterioration of a person’s central vision capabilities usually occurring before age 20. At 26, Carla Shibley only has about two per cent of her central vision left in each eye, allowing her to still make out some colours, though certain dark and light shades still blend together in her field of vision.

 

While much of her peripheral vision remains intact, Shibley’s eyes are still extremely light sensitive, which means she often requires sunglasses. “But when the light really glares, sometimes I get sunblind — or night blindness [when it’s particularly dark out].” Severe lighting conditions can cause a total whiteout in Shibley’s field of vision at a moment’s notice.

 

As if navigating public spaces with minimal central vision wasn’t difficult enough, this light sensitivity can make outdoor environments particularly challenging for Shibley to move in.

 

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From the perspective of someone with a visual impairment, using Calgary’s C-Train platforms can be like racing through an obstacle course blindfolded.

 

“The platform is full of different obstacles,” says Shibley, reciting a list of things she routinely bumps into while taking the train to work and school: platform benches, ticket boxes, light posts, support poles — even environmentally conscious additions like trees, and a few decorative art installments. “There is just a lot of clutter on the platform,” she says.

 

According to Shibley, our city’s public transit platforms all seem to follow the same design mandate that the centre of the platform must suffer congestion for the benefit of the outer edges of the space — putting everything in the middle so the passenger boarding area and sidewalk on either side remain clutter free. But while Shibley understands that some obstacles, like benches for travellers to wait on or boxes to purchase their fare at, are necessary, she says that others, particularly the decorative trees, can cause serious problems — and not just for the visually impaired.

 

“You know, a lot of people on the platform, they aren’t paying attention to where they’re walking,” she says, gesturing to a slippery metal grate surrounding each tree. “It’s not just partially sighted people who are running into these trees here — I actually see sighted people all the time smashing into them and thinking like they’re complete idiots because they’ve run into this tree, and as a partially sighted person you just want to chuckle, because you have an issue with it and then you see someone sighted even struggling with it.”

 

“So you would think this is just about accessibility, but actually it’s about safety as well.”

 

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After several fruitless attempts to convince the City of Calgary to remove the trees (and other clutter, for that matter) from train platforms, Shibley was told that planting trees along the platform helps the city to fulfill an environmental sustainability quota, and therefore they won’t be going anywhere any time soon. Shibley says she’s since simply had to learn to take the perils of this space with a grain of salt.

 

“It’s a fake it ‘til you make it kind of thing. I’ve pretty much memorized where everything is on the platform, but if the sun is in my eyes, there’s been instances where I’ll almost trip on a bench, or walk into an electrical box,” says Shibley. And although she isn’t shy to take her collapsible fluorescent pink cane out from her purse if she’s really having difficulty, Shibley says using her cane in public spaces isn’t always a reassuring alternative.

 

“It’s not everyone-around-me’s business that I have partial sight,” she says, admitting her insecurity that notifying others of her hidden impairment by using her cane might make her something of a target in the wrong environment. “It’s just my perception, and that’s on me if I don’t use it, and maybe people might not think that way — but sometimes I don’t want to pull my cane out in public. Sometimes it feels like I’m making myself vulnerable if I do, to someone who wouldn’t have otherwise known that I’m partially sighted.”

 

At any rate, using her cane to help navigate the maze of platform clutter isn’t always helpful when the obstacles start to move.

 

“It’s like a dodging game, and it doesn’t matter if you have your cane out — if people aren’t paying attention, it’s a never-ending story,” she says. “So I feel like, if [the city] cleared some of the obstacles up, people may be more willing to watch out where they’re looking.”

 

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The city so far hasn’t budged when it comes to getting rid of the trees on the platform — but while Shibley understands their reasoning, she also believes that more innovative measures need to be considered in order for our city to become truly accessible.

 

“I understand you need the aesthetics, and you need the trees because it’s good for the environment, but then really, find another spot for your trees,” she suggests, marking this case as an example of innovation in one sector impeding the progress of another. “I feel like it’s ignorant. It’s ignorant on the people’s end who are coming up with these ideas, because they think they are being so innovative and making the city look so nice and making it more green, but that doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t function.”

 

In that quest to merge form with function, Shibley says the most important thing for the city when planning future infrastructure projects, or when updating existing ones, should be getting in touch with Calgarians of all abilities to really educate themselves on what is required from a space by the citizens who use it most.

 

“People have this perception of ‘Poor you because you’re in a wheelchair,’ or ‘Poor you because you can’t see,’ and this and that. They need to stop feeling sorry for people and be able to go out there and ask, ‘Hey, what do you need? What can I do to help you? What’s going to make your life easier?’” Shibley explains. “If they don’t ask people that have to cope with whatever their issue is, then they’re really never going to know how to help, and people are just going to keep getting frustrated… But when you can start with making things accessible, then you kind of get a steam engine going. Then people can feel confident, and strong, and independent, and want to get out there in society and make a difference, right?”

 

Shibley suggests that any efforts to move absolutely vital pieces of the space, like ticket booths, maps, and benches, further back from the edge of the platform would go a long way to make the passenger loading area feel more spacious for those with visual impairments or even wheelchairs. Rewiring outdoor lighting to attach to nearby buildings or the +15 Skywalks overhead is also a desired solution, although less likely, she believes, due to the costs associated with such a project.

 

Finally, being more inventive with coloured and textured stripping on the platform could make partially sighted people feel safer if it was also used to signal midway points on the platform, rather than just the immediate edge as it is now, “so that you don’t have to walk right up to the edge of to orient yourself [in the space],” Shibley suggests.