Editor’s note: Each year starting in 2006, The Question has marked the countdown date to the start of the 2010 Paralympic Games by examining the issue of accessibility in Whistler. With the Games set to begin a year from today — March 12, 2010 — we again present a report that looks at what’s been achieved and the challenges that lie ahead in the effort to make Whistler accessible to all.

At a workshop in Whistler this past January, Squamish-based accessibility consultant Sarah Tipler — one of two Sea to Sky corridor residents who represented Canada as part of the Summer Paralympic Torch Relay in China last summer — told a group of resort workers that at one point or another in our lives, most of us will face some sort of mobility challenge.

Whether it’s a result of a temporary injury, an age-related infirmity or we’re just loaded down with small children or cargo, access is a challenge nearly all of us face. In fact, Tipler and others involved in the accessibility movement have a term for those who, at the moment, have all their senses and limbs more or less functioning fully: Temporarily Able-Bodied.

“I’m perfectly normal. My normal might be different than your normal, but that’s the joy of being an individual,” Tipler said at the Assisting People With Disabilities workshop at Millennium Place.

“Access for all” — regardless or either temporary or permanent challenges each of us might face — has become a mantra for many in the resort as it prepares to host three of the five sports (Alpine and Nordic skiing and biathlon) that make up the Winter Paralympics beginning a year from today (March 12).

Chelsey Walker, executive director of the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program (WASP), said as she helped out at last week’s International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Nordic and biathlon World Cup event last week that she’s seen an “amazing,” though subtle, transformation in Whistler over the past couple of years.

“Everybody that we’re working with are visitors first,” said Walker, whose organization works to provide those with mobility challenges with mountain sports and outdoor recreational experiences. The more welcome we can make all visitors feel, including those disabilities, the better. If Whistler can be known as the epicentre as a mountain resort for travellers with disabilities, it’s positive for everyone in the resort.”

Dave Calver, a former Whistlerite and accessibility consultant who has been working with Whistler’s Accessibility Advisory Group (AAG) for the past couple of years, said he’s been impressed by the shift in thinking that has occurred here.

“The idea of universal accessibility (i.e. not just for disabilities, but friendlier environments for young parents pushing strollers, elderly people with difficulties walking, individuals carrying heavy loads or pushing heavy items) for everyone… has been adopted 100 per cent within the municipal planning offices and all new infrastructure development is done with fully accessibility as the goal,” Calver wrote last week in an email from Australia, where he was travelling.

Kevin McFarland, the municipal parks planner who has been the RMOW’s point man on the accessibility effort ever since the Paralympics were awarded to Vancouver-Whistler in 2003, is the first to admit that the Village and its surrounding areas — which was, after all, mostly built in the early 1980s with only a passing glance at the issue of accessibility for all — could be more accessible.

Still, he also proudly reports on a number of initiatives that have been or are being undertaken, both on the physical access side of the equation and the softer side — i.e. providing information (route-finding, access advice to potential guests and staff training).

Whistler officials and others interested in making the resort as accessible as it can be in 2010 and beyond started doing assessments and correcting physical deficiencies almost from the day the Games were awarded in 2003.

Two of the most frequently used Whistler Village access points — the breezeway linking the Taxi Loop with Village Square and the entrance to Skiers Plaza from the Gondola Transit Exchange — have been the focus of considerable attention over the past year.

McFarland said the new two-tiered ramp system at the entrance to the breezeway represents a significant upgrade in a high-profile location.

“Truly universal design would include a ramp and stairs as one, seamless system, but I’m very pleased how the new ramp opens to the Taxi Loop in a big, welcoming situation,” McFarland said.

The Skiers Plaza/Gondola Transit Exchange situation is even more challenging. When Whistler Village was constructed, engineers decided to erect a large berm to protect Skiers Plaza from the possibility of flooding from Fitzsimmons Creek. At the moment, walkways and stairs allow most guests to enter Skiers Plaza, where the Whistler Village and Excalibur gondola bases are.

But the berm is an impediment to those who find it difficult or impossible to negotiate several flights of stairs.

McFarland said he has been investigating the possibility of a covered, outdoor elevator to lift guests from Skiers Plaza to the top of the berm, then upgrading the walkways in the area to allow them access and egress to and from the Gondola Transit Exchange.

“From the bus shelter to the crest of the hill can be redeveloped as a ramp system with a 5 per cent grade,” he said, describing 5 per cent as “a nice, gentle slope.”

McFarland said that while it’s a fairly complex project that will cost on the order of $250,000, he’s hoping it’ll be complete in time for the Paralympics in March 2010.

“We got direction from the advisory group that this is a worthwhile thing for us to achieve, and Council has been supportive of it within the capital plan,” he said. “I just need to verify that it will work, that we can find the equipment, and I also have to get Whistler Blackcomb’s permission to proceed with the work on their lease area.

“That’s one of our big targets for 2009.”

Accessible parks and play facilities are a big focus for Shira Golden, a Burnaby-based accessibility consultant who is helping Whistler officials plan and design an inclusive, accessible play facility as part of the Celebration Plaza project.

Golden is paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a climbing accident 13 years ago in Grenoble, France. A landscape architect by trade, she said the idea of a universally designed playground is not for every part of the playground to necessarily be equally accessible to all; some play spaces might be off the ground, but the spaces in which mobility challenged children can play make it easy for them to interact with other children.

Accessible slides and swings, and even platforms, are just a few of the features that work well, she said.

“A swinging or spinning platform is great for everyone, because children can be transferred onto them,” she said. “The most important thing is that kids are able to get right to the centre of the action.”

Said McFarland, “We’re working on a space that encourages a broader spectrum of play, including sensory experiences and discovery play as well as access play.”

The amount of information available to mobility-challenged guests has seen an explosion in the past couple of years. A visit to the municipal website (www.whistler.ca) and a click on the little wheelchair on the homepage brings visitors to a page labeled “Access,” with information and links to other sites as well as the new Barrier Free Route Maps, showing the locations of handicap parking stalls, wheelchair-accessible washrooms, ramps and covered, accessible routes. An “X” marks the location of impediments to those with mobility challenges.

Whistler Blackcomb’s website (www.whistlerblackcomb.com) includes a page labeled “Independent Disabled Travellers’ Information,” which states from the outset that Whistler Mountain is more accessible than Blackcomb, primarily because wheelchair users can access the mountain via the Whistler Village Gondola.

Both of those sites include a link to the Whistler for the Disabled site (www.whistlerforthedisabled.com), which offers a wealth of information for disabled visitors. Included are separate charts for both restaurants and hotels. The restaurant guide provides information about lighting (for those who use sign language or read lips) and about access to both the restaurant and washrooms; the hotel guide includes the number of rooms that are wheelchair accessible and whether the rooms have closed-caption television sets and wheelchair-accessible baths and/or showers.

The accommodations page of the site begins, “Depending on your disability, Whistler is generally a friendly environment, but you have to be careful of the location where you will decide to stay. Some hotels and condos may be up a hill and although getting to your hotel room is accessible, getting to the Village and back may not be.

“A good rule to remember is that the closer you are to the Village and the Whistler (Village) Gondola, the easier it will be to get around on your own.”

Golden said that while there are still challenges, the WASP program has helped make the mountains much more accessible to all and to integrate “adaptive” users into the mainstream.

Overall, she said, Whistler “is really quite good in comparison with other places, and I think it certainly has that reputation as a place to come for people with challenges.”

Calver, who is in a wheelchair as a result of a mountain biking accident he suffered in Kamloops in 2001, said he thinks Whistler has come a long way in a short time.

However, he wrote, “One of the main (challenges) is recognizing that expectation management is important. Not all environments can or will be fully accessible, nor should they, in many cases, but people need to have the information to make informed choices and decide where they wish to go and if that is an option.”

— With files from Jennifer Miller, The Question.