Footpaths a nightmare for disability scooter riders

Tairāwhiti Positive Ageing trustee Nona Aston says a Gisborne district councillor should make a trip on her disability scooter to learn how dangerous many footpaths are for senior citizens to use. Herald file picture

The challenge has been issued.

Long-serving disability advocate and former deputy mayor Nona Aston has challenged Gisborne district councillors to ride her disability scooter on a city footpath.

She told councillors some carriageways and footpaths were unsafe and that some senior citizens walking or using scooters had suffered injuries.

The Tairāwhiti Positive Ageing trustee was making a submission to the Gisborne Regional Transport Committee hearing on the Regional Land Transport Plan and Regional Public Transport Plan.

Mrs Aston’s verbal submission was typically passionate and forthright.

She suggested a councillor ride from Dunblane Lifecare retirement home to Kaiti Hub, the city centre or Ballance Street Village.

It was a nightmare experience regardless of which parallel road was chosen en route.

“I’m asking one of you councillors, borrow my scooter.”

Mrs Aston asked councillors if they knew how scooters rode in the city, but provided her own answer by repeatedly slamming her desk.

If her invitation to a councillor to ride her scooter was accepted, she would “juice it up”.

“But if you break it, you pay for it.”

Her scooter was “really important”. It provided independence.

Some footpaths were “lovely” but others were terrible.

People could not walk without looking down to check the surface and walkers (frames) often had to be lifted up while crossing roads.

“I’m begging you . . . please don’t just look at the main thoroughfares. Please start looking at where we live.

“Kaiti is full of elderly people who are more dependent and there are more scooters and walkers in that area. It’s a shocker.

“The whole of Kaiti Hub is so uneven. I’ve seen people tripping.

“When you younger ones make your decision, come and ask us older ones. We don’t see well, we don’t hear well and we don’t walk well.

“Please remember that with our footpaths . . . so the next generation of seniors can walk safely.”

Councillor Colin Alder said the Palmerston Road-Peel Street roundabout cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 and asked Mrs Aston if she believed the money could have been better spent on various smaller projects.

“I absolutely despise roundabouts,” she said.

She was grateful for crossings but said they were too close to corners where vehicles were turning left (towards pedestrians looking to cross the road).

“Why on Earth did you give away the (traffic) lights because people had time to get across?”

She would rather have had the roundabout funding spent on traffic lights and good footpaths.

“We (senior citizens) are a forgotten race. In 50 years time there will be more of us than there will be of you.”

Mrs Aston ended her submission by thanking councillors for what they do.

“We really appreciate it. It’s not an easy job. I know that.”