"Walk & Roll" in Vancity

We decided to have our accessible date take place at Metro town Mall. This is a large mall in Burnaby, BC that is considered to be a huge retail market; It is filled with shops, restaurants, entertainment and much more. We chose Metro town for several reasons, its a popular hangout for many young adults because of the variety of options and its easily accessible via transit. Secondly, we thought it would be a great idea to experience some of the things that a person in a wheelchair may exhibit in their day to day life not just on a date.


Our date night started off at Metrotown Skytrain Station, arriving off the skytrain there were escalators, stairs and elevators located off the platform. We decide to scope out the time it would take to get inside the mall by taking both the escalator then the elevator. If you take the escalator down, you have an immediate covered walkway leading directly into the first floor of mall, this took us about 2 minutes.

We then ventured over to the elevator. This is located on the other side of the platform, which could be a bit of inconvenience for someone during a busy transit hour, you are going against the flow of individuals walking towards the escalator and stairs, and it may be hard to navigate a wheel chair through all the walking traffic. Secondly, we rode the elevator down to the main street, this was the only option, there was no stop for the mall. We got off the elevator, and noticed that the mall was on the other side of a busy main street and we had to go the closest sidewalk in order to cross. There was no overpass, or covered walkways here. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day outside, but we could only imagine how wet a person may be after commuting outside in the Vancouver rain! By time we waited to cross the street, and walked to the nearest accessible entrance it had taken us almost 10 minutes.

After a long ten minute commute, our stomachs were growling, and we decided that we needed to get something to eat! There were a few options available in the mall, but we decided to out rule any fast food choices. We decided to head over to a local favourite, called "Kawawa Japanese".

The restaurant had a nice open seating plan, with both booths and tables. It had a open setup, so there were no doors to squeeze through, or steps to enter. We decided that a booth would be pretty difficult accessibility wise, so we grabbed a table. We enjoyed a few beverages and delicious sushi rolls. We also checked out the bathroom, and it had a large accessible stall, and was spacious inside. The sinks and paper towel were at a reasonable height that a person of any size, sitting or standing would be able to reach. Although we did notice that the door into the bathroom was quite heavy and did not have a automatic open button, this may have been helpful for a person that doesn't have any assistance to help open the door. It could be difficult to manoeuvre a wheel chair in order to open such a heavy door independtly.

We left the restaurant more than satisfied with our meal and decided that we would go check out the arcade while we waited for our movie to start. The arcade was in extremely tight quarters and there wasn't even enough room for two people to walk side by side, let alone a wheel chair commuting through, and most of the machines either required standing, or moving to a game seat in order to play. We scratched this idea, and headed to the movies.

The movies were a great second alternative to the arcade! We grabbed a few goodies before heading up to the movie at the "Sweet Factory". The candy store was full of all different candies, and we grabbed a few bags. We did notice that a majority of the candies we accessible and were located around hip height, although a few of the candies that were in the higher bins were harder to reach for anyone, and would be extremely difficult for a person in a wheelchair to grab without assistance.

On our way to the movie theatre, we noticed that there were a variety of way to get up to the top floor. We skipped the escalator and the stairs, and waited for the elevator. The elevator took several minutes to come get us, and we almost missed the preview to our movie. The movie theatre was a open setup once again, which allowed for plenty of room to move around. The line for the cashier was long, so we decided to grab our tickets from the automated machines. The machines were at a perfect height and accessible for everyone to use. It was a simple, straightforward setup and a fast alternative the cashier. We grabbed our tickets and headed inside. The movie theatre doors, were held open by door stoppers, and the handicapped seats were still available when we got there. We did notice that there were only two wheelchair seats available in this particular theatre, but they did have prime location for viewing. The only downfall was that if you did sit in those seats, there was a limit on how many people could sit with you, and you had to deal with all the movement of people going to and from the washroom.

After the movie we decided to use the washroom before heading to our last stop of the date. The main washrooms were signed as accessible for wheelchairs, and were spacious and convenient inside. It was a little crowded inside at times, but there was also a third washroom located outside the main one that was a accessible handicapped single bathroom stall if needed!

Our last stop for the evening was a small coffee shop just down a floor from the theatre. We decide a hot chocolate and a cinnamon bun would end our date in perfect fashion. Once again we waited several minutes for the elevator just to go down one floor. We grabbed a seat at the "CinnaBon", they had simple chairs and tables, so it was a possibility to just remove a chair, so a wheelchair could slide in. Although there werent a ton of options for a person in a wheelchair to sit, because there were so many tables in such a small area, and it would be difficult to manoeuvre in and around them. Because of this, we had to sit in the outer part of the coffee shop, and close to the door. Fortunately,  the coffee shop is located inside a closed area, but if it was at another coffee shop, it may have been quite cold to sit so close to the door.  After a long evening, we grabbed out warm cinnamon buns, and hot chocolate and talked for hours on end, which was a great end to our fabulous date night.

- Sharon Bai, Vicky Yi & Sarah Lee