John Hawkins/Stuff
What do Invercargill city buses have to say for themselves?
Blind Citizens Southland wants to know when audio announcements alerting travellers to upcoming stops will be reintroduced in Invercargill.
The city was one of the first in New Zealand to introduce them, as part of a newly designed bus service in 2013.
“That was fantastic,’’ representative Carolyn Weston told Southland District Councillors at an infrastructure committee meeting on February 7. “Not only for us. It also assisted new people in Invercargill, and tourists.’’
But when routes were changed in 2020, the information had been rendered obsolete. The organisation had been told these would be replaced, she said.
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Two and a-half years later, it still hadn’t happened.
The committee sought a report on the issue in time for its next meeting.
Weston reminded councillors that the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill was before Parliament and asked that Blind Citizens Southland be involved in any new design for public transport in the city.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the council had an obligation to provide accessible transport for all people, including those who were blind, visually impaired or deaf-blind, she said.
Cr Grant Dermody asked Weston how user-friendly the city was for them, including the redeveloped CBD.
She said some people liked the new colour schemes, but others found parts of it too glarey.
It was difficult to talk about the outdoor areas where work was still under way, but there had been some concern at the stormwater-fed rain gardens proving a hazard.
There may be a need for some more tactile indicators along the ground, to let people know they were coming up to a garden, she said.