Hi there @CityofVancouver, this is just me being proactive. Do NOT ever do this. Do NOT ever bring these benches to this city.

'Everyone stop trying to use accessibility to commit acts of harm and perpetrate injustice against other disabled and marginalized people' challenge. https://twitter.com/CloHiggins/status/1391083611860967426

all of this thread plus the fact that in most places the majority of people who are homeless - which this architecture is actively trying to prevent the presence of reclining - are disabled people. https://twitter.com/quatoria/status/1391472436865077253?s=20

This is also why:
1) Govt needs to listen to specific disabled people with specific analysis - and not the neoliberal supercrips - because I promise you some of them would not only approve this but pose for the ribbon cutting of it.

2) Analysis matters not just lived expertise. Knowledge of history, analysis and lived expertise. And that must in particular include race, class and gender analysis.
3) Why I Disability Alliance BC attacking land defenders under guise of accessibility is SUCH A BIG F-ING DEAL.

I literally got more back-up from US disability activists on that than I did from disabled people in BC. There are sides and there are lines and if you align with that kind of shite we aren't on the same side.

Accessibility has been used as excuse to displace homeless people, to attack land defenders and protesters. Accessibility is weaponized by neoliberals because everything is a weapon of oppression in their hands.

This is why I fight to reclaim accessibility.

This is why I won't engage in the "whose accessibility matters more" fights between cyclists and drivers where neither is even genuinely motivated by accessibility and just see it as another 'argument' for their side.
How we discuss accessibility matters not just how we build it

This bench is still awful because it has the hostile architecture design of metal bar divisions - also hostile to couples, kids, fat people as well any people (often disabled and/or homeless) who need to lie down.
But shows the accessibility solution is space beside the bench.

credit for that photo - it's from this page. https://locallove.ca/places/the-surprising-ways-city-parks-create-barriers/#.YJhC2GZKg6g

The reality, as I just explained in a reply, is there are very few benches in Vancouver that I've come across where I can sit beside the person on the bench. Instead I have to sit in front facing them - if I know them - like a stroller and blocking path.

This is a really good example of inaccessibility because you can see how there is no extra cost involved in making it a more accessible space, no real effort at all except caring that disabled people exist and desiring not to exclude us by design.

I always use versions of this one (sorry about quality but magnified) in presentations. No space for wheelchair users not to be in way. Anyone wanna gues where this is located? Where they didn't think wheelchair users might want to sit outside?

If you don't know the people on the bench and you want to just rest as a wheelchair user it can actually be surprisingly difficult to find a spot to do so that isn't in people's path and doesn't involve constantly moving or being bumped.

Here's a clue where that bench is located. And closer still so you can see the actual bench is not on pavement so there is literally no accessible space beside them.

Oh here's a better photo. Think of the care and thought that goes into landscaping versus accessibility.
That's a glimpse into how little value is placed on our humanity and presence.