Sabrina Cook, Accessibility Coordinator, City Clerk's Office, and Adam Vaiya, Advisor, Office of Climate Change and Energy Management, Region of Peel, provided a presentation regarding Accessible Design Guidelines for Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations. The following key points were highlighted:
- Current state of Brampton public EV charging stations
- Development of accessible design guidelines
- Key elements in the design
- alignment with AODA and Traffic By-law with additional space encouraged
- recommendations to manufacturers to make products and services more accessible
- Next steps include:
- apply guidelines to all new corporate EV charging stations
- update the technical standards and create a web version
Item 7.4 was brought forward and dealt together with the presentation.
Sabrina Cook provided an overview of the report highlighting the dimensions of the site and spatial design, design guidelines, signage, spatial mobility, requirements and best practices, access aisles, operable parts and placement distance, lighting, websites and mobile applications.
Sabrina Cook, was joined by Adam Vaiya, Advisor, Office of Climate Change and Energy Management, Region of Peel, to respond to Committee with respect to comments and questions that included the following:
- Seating accommodation for users while vehicles were being charged
- Both upper and lower case lettering required on signage content
- Questions on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and a suggestion that the updated AODA guidelines standards should be considered instead of the approved Provincial level standards
- Ensuring that EV charging stations are fully accessible to all users with amenities, such as bathrooms
- Suggestion that charging stations should provide wide accessible aisles on both sides
- New charging stations will be fitted with accessible aisles and follow all guidelines
- Retrofitting of older charging locations will not be considered, however the site of the Region of Peel headquarters will be retrofitted
- Clarification on the requirements for accessible EV charging spaces
- Communication to the public about where accessible charging stations will be located and ensuring that information will be available on the City's website
- Suggestion that a mobile application that can identify to a user that an accessible charging station was available and may be reserved would be beneficial
Both Sabrina Cook and Adam Vaiya advised that all comments and feedback will be reviewed and considered. The Accessible Design Guidelines will then be finalized and circulated to all stakeholders.
The following motion was considered: