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Bowmore students take accessibility as outreach project
Get to know the wildlife living just beyond your backyard. Read our special feature on page 10
ERIN HATFIELD ehatfield@insidetoronto.com Inspired by the book The Ramp Man, students at Bowmore Road Public School have taken accessibility to the streets. A group of Grade 8 students in the school’s Me to We program, which teaches community involvement and local and global citizenship, have been making their way along Queen Street East to educate shop owners and managers about accessibility. The Ramp Man is a children’s book that tells the story of Luke Anderson, a 24 year old man whose life was changed after sustaining a spinal cord injury while mountain biking. The book is the true story written by Bowmore Road Principal Thelma Sambrook and Anderson’s sister Logan Anderson, a Toronto District School Board teacher. The story tells how Luke found himself in a world not well designed for someone who uses a wheelchair and how he, a trained engineer, turned his frustration into positive actions. Luke Anderson and his co-worker and friend Michael Hopkins founded StopGap, an organization that fosters community projects that raise awareness and remove barriers. One of StopGap’s initiatives, The Community Ramp Project, organizes volunteers to design, build and install ramps on commercial strips. The bright colours of the ramps also draw attention to the fact it is >>>students, page 12
IN THE CITY Leslie Barns new name for LRV storage facility RAHUL GUPTA rgupta@insidetoronto.com The former Ashbridges Bay Streetcar and Storage Facility has a new name. Again. The TTC’s board of commissioners voted to approve the name change of the facility at Leslie Street and Lake Shore Boulevard to the Leslie Barns, which supporters say better reflects the local neighbourhood.
The decision was supposed to have been finalized in November when the board voted to change the name of the 22-acre facility under construction to the Leslie Barn. Barn versus Barns But at December’s board meeting, TTC chair Karen Stintz motioned to re-open the issue and the final name change was adopted unanimously
by the board this week. TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said the second vote was needed because of a “misunderstanding” by TTC staff and Leslie ‘Barns’ was the preferred name all along. One of the councillors who pushed for the name change was pleased with the board’s decision to re-address the matter and vote again for the correct name. “We’re thrilled with the change
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to Leslie Barns,” said Beaches-East York Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, who along with Toronto Danforth Councillor Paula Fletcher, wrote a letter to Stintz requesting the name change. They said the original name had negative connotations to a past sewage treatment facility at Ashbridges Bay. “We just thought it wasn’t the most fitting name for the storage yard,” McMahon said.