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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2005 THE NEW TANNER 17 Happy New Year From Tyler Transport Ltd. & Staff Ted Tyler Senior - Founder of Tyler Transport Transporting Your Children Safely Since 1948 25 Passanger Mini Coach For all Your Charter Needs Modern School Buses For Comfort & Safety Service that Satisfies Since 1929 Transporting Your Children Safely Since 1948 519-853-1550 More still to be done to aid Town disabled By FRANCES NIBLOCK The New Tanner While the Town has come a long way in identifying, removing and preventing barriers that hurt or detract from the quality of life of disabled persons, there is more to be done accord- ing to Councillor Moya Johnson. As chair of the Halton Hills Accessibility Advi- sory Committee, Johnson recently presented Council with the annual municipal accessibility plan, an up- date on what has been done and what must be done it is a provincially man- dated program to improve the quality of life for the disabled. As well, many seniors face the same is- sues that disabled people do including problems with transportation, access to buildings and loss of hear- ing or sight. Johnson said an audit of Town buildings and fa- cilities showed they are not accessible to all, as they thought, and while some items will be big budget items to fix, some can be a lot more accessible with very slight adjustments. Johnson said the first of 11 action items in the com- mittee report is to complete an audit of Town facilities to develop a five-year plan to identify barriers, get cost estimates for retrofitting and list all barrier-free facilities and programs. The 2006 accessibility plan comes with an $80,000 price tag $50,000 in the proposed capital budget and $30,000 in the operating budget. One of the major costs is $45,000 to look at improv- ing sidewalk safety, and Johnson said a sub-com- mittee would be formed to identify those sidewalk and intersection locations that are hazardous to disabled persons, and also to ask other disabled persons to identify problem spots. The committee is also looking at supporting pi- lot projects such as traffic signal retrofits designed to assist seniors and disabled persons with audio com- ponents and timers that will tell how much time they have left before the traffic light will change ,Johnson said. One of the major changes the Town is proud of is its decision to voluntarily provide closed-captioning of its Council meetings, beginning in March, at a cost of $16,000. Other items in the 2006 municipal accessibility plan include: more staff training on accessibility issues accessibility training opportunities for local busi- nesses to meet licensing requirements a special event in honour of National Access Aware- ness Week an annual award cere- mony and community open house to recognize acces- sibility achievements Awards of Merit for mak ing a cce s s i b i l i t y improvements to local busi- nesses Johnson said the work of the committee would help them achieve a better Halton Hills, thats more accessible to all. Acton Councillor Jon Hurst said he was glad to see that there were some workshops and training planned for small busi- nesses. Collision at Mill/Main No details were available at press time regarding an al- leged hit and run collision between two vehicles at the corner of Mill and Main Sts. Tuesday evening about 7:15p.m. Police and firefighters blocked off Mill St. from Willow to Main Sts. and part of Main as police investigated. One disabled vehicle was in the middle of the intersection.