How Age-Friendly is a Modern City?
When Secretary General Jane Barratt was asked recently by the Toronto Star to help evaluate Canada’s largest city, she found plenty of room for improvement. However, Jane emphasizes that older citizens deserve better than cries of alarm and panic at the growing number of over-65’s. This age group is the fastest growing population segment in the Greater Toronto Area. Projecting the latest census trends, by 2031 over-65's will make up 16 percent of the population, and the population of those over 75 will have increased by 50 percent.
“Let’s stop being frightened of being older, because older people have a significant contribution to make, says Jane. “Look at it that way, instead of looking at it as a burden on society.”
Like many modern cities, Toronto has made major adjustments to support changing populations, including the influx of vibrant and diverse immigrant groups. A positive spirit of welcoming and accommodation needs to be extended to an ‘influx’ of older citizens as the population ages. Hand wringing and alarm cries have no place in the planning and implementation of measures to support such an important population segment.
Barratt has several tips for Toronto in order to make it more age-friendly.
Tips for an Age-Friendly City
 Keep public access surfaces even and clear. Winter frost damage challenges Toronto’s ability to maintain streets and sidewalks in a safe state year round. An age-friendly city needs to pursue this challenge as aggressively as possible. Lack of agility on uneven pavement results in falls and broken bones. Once an older person loses mobility, it is often difficult to regain it again. In a city like Toronto with winter snow, maintaining street surfaces is not only a municipal responsibility, but also an individual one. Conscientious sidewalk snow clearance by homeowners is an important insurance policy for older walkers.
Tailor customer service to older people. Services like driver’s license renewals need more ‘short-wait’ service counters for the physically challenged. Alternately, ‘take a number then take a seat’ systems of queuing for service are more suited to older citizens. Barratt suggested that Service Ontario would be a good place to implement these improvements. This tip highlights the fact that not just municipal, but also regional, provincial and federal governments interact with people in cities. Governments at all levels need to plan and implement a successful age-friendly modern community.
 Install more subway elevators and ‘down’ escalators. Toronto’s sparse patchwork of elevators on its subway transit system effectively bars access to many stations for those who are physically challenged to climb stairs. Even when gravity assists a walk down a long flight of stairs, loss of agility can make this a daunting or impossible task for older persons, unless ‘down’ escalators as well as ‘up’ escalators are available.
Encourage and support voluntary transportation systems. Admirable it may be, Toronto’s Wheel-Trans system is limited in its ability to transport the disabled around the city. Handling its booking procedures can at times challenge any citizen, irrespective of age! Other cities successfully utilize support from more informal transportation systems. Stockholm, for example, offers free volunteer transport on weekends.
 Install higher public benches. Gravity is often the enemy of older people. Settling onto a low seat is easy. The problem of getting up again from a low park bench can prevent older people from resting and enjoying the city’s public areas.
Allow more time to cross the street. Toronto has recently converted nearly all pedestrian traffic signals. They give a countdown warning to a light change. But for many older citizens, it’s a warning they are about to be stranded in the middle of an  intersection! Warning times need to be extended for slow walkers, a group that also includes parents with small children as well as the disabled. Further, much improvement can be made with audio cues to counter visual impairment, a common problem for older citizens. Countries like Japan give audio clues at crossings, such as “walk now” or “three seconds to stop.”
 Install automatic sliding doors in public spaces. City buildings demand door-opening strength which often defeats older people. These buildings range from shopping malls through museums and concert halls to public office buildings. The problem is particularly acute in a northern city like Toronto, where heat conservation systems often place a double barrier of doors to challenge older people summer and winter alike.
Throw away the ‘Seniors’ classification. “If you want to break down barriers of ageism and discrimination, you need to see people as people,” says Barratt. “Call them older adults, older people, mature workers, or older persons.”
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Aging, Poverty & Social Justice