Estée KlarThe Joy of Autism

My memories of the Toronto Subway go back to the age of four. My mother, who did not drive a car, would take me on her errands and to the dentist and I remember it whisking and clanking under dark tunnels.

I grew to depend on it Toronto’s subway system and it is a symbol of freedom for me. As a teenager, when we lived in the suburbs, I took the subway and wandered around Toronto’s streets alone as early as the age of twelve. Mom would give me a few bucks for lunch and off I would go walking for an entire day. Hard to imagine that happening today as I see no children of that age playing in the streets or wandering alone anymore.

I learned of the world this way. It was my early introduction to myself by watching and interacting with strangers. I would measure how people behaved, dressed and came into my own. Despite my naivete and perhaps because of sheer luck, I was safe. I never worried about shootings or being pushed into the railway tracks.

Adam also loves the subway, as we hear many autistic people do. His eyes move quickly, not missing one thing, as the signs of subway stops and tiles shift past with lightening speed. My mother, Adam’s grandmother, takes him on subway rides just for fun. A native Torontonian herself, she has fond memories of her city, growing up in Cabbagetown while her Croatian dad who was a grocery store owner, bought his produce at four in the morning from St. Lawerence Market. We are a rare bunch we are today — we born and bred Torontonians living in a city largely populated and enhanced by immigrants.

Today, there was another attempted murder at the Toronto Subway at the Dufferin Station. A man pushed three young boys into the tunnel. Thankfully, they survived (there is a safety corridor down there one can roll into apparently) with one crushed foot.

A few years ago, a woman in my neighbourhood suffering severe post-partum depression, threw herself into the subway with her new born baby. That was at the Heath Station.

Recently, as I traverse the subway to attend the theatre with my parents and Adam often, as it is the most convenient way to get around the downtown core, I remind my parents to stay away from the edge. I envision some crazy person targeting my innocent child. What is it with the world that we have to worry so much about the safety of our children? What is it that we seem to be so evolved in some ways, to have become so primitive in others where the dignity and safety of our children is threatened? Where and when did our sense of community go?

This is not the first incident of this kind in Toronto. By virtue of putting everyone together, of course we are at risk, but we have to improve the standards of this system to keep us together and decent. The TTC has long been asked to put up barriers to protect others and so this does not happen anymore. This has been a long-term request inasmuch as we need an extended transit system in a highly populated area to keep emissions down and people moving and working. I just don’t get it. I’ve been to many cities around the world where it’s safer and easier to travel farther by subway.

Those barriers — will they get up any time soon? Well, the subway system lines have not really expanded all that much since I was four. That was forty years ago. I wonder if it will change much by the time Adam turns forty so that he may experience the same freedom I once had. I find it particularly striking that the government does not consider the safety of its citizens pararmount here, not to mention that public transit is a need for many of Canada’s disabled and non disabled populations. If Inclusion is our goal and diversity our treasure, let’s get on it.

• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• share via Reddit
• Tweet about it