Access Kingston Frontenac

Jeff Green | Mar 04, 2020

Kurt Halliday is a Parham area resident with a disability who has been working on developing services for physically disabled Frontenac County residents.
He recently started up a demonstration project called Access Kingston Frontenac.
“Access Kingston Frontenac is a demonstration project supporting development of accessibility, accommodation and inclusion in the City of Kingston and Frontenac County. This concerns a broad sector that includes seniors, vulnerable persons and people with disabilities,” he said in a press release about the new initiative.
When contacted by phone early this week, Halliday indicated that the impetus for starting up the project comes from the fact that that the region lacks awareness, resources and action in comparison with the rest of Ontario.
“Currently, this region lacks awareness, resources and action in comparison with much of Ontario. Key examples include general business and tourism. Rural awareness, resources and services are particularly lacking.”
One of the major issues in the rural areas is transportation. Halliday said that
services are hard to come by, particularly for those under 65, and he has been engaged with public sector transportation providers, Frontenac Transportation Services, and Southern Frontenac Community Services, as well as private sector providers from Kingston, including taxi companies and a company called ‘Driving Miss Daisy’.
The public providers do not have equipped vehicles or drivers available.
“They can’t afford to,” said Halliday, “and the private sector offerings are very limited and are very expensive. It is certainly not something that someone could afford on a regular basis, to commute to a job, for example,” he said.
One of the goals of the project is to engage volunteers to see what resource and services are available in Frontenac County communities, and eventually the aim is to start an accessibility and inclusion agency that serves Frontenac and other Eastern Ontario communities.
Frontenac County has an accessibility advisory committee, and Halliday was a member of the committee at one time, but left because he was missing too many meetings.
“The county committee is a legislated committee under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It is responsible only for municipal infrastructure and policies ,to ensure Frontenac County and its member municipalities are conforming with the act.
The focus of our project is different. We will be looking at what resources and services are available in the community as part of our development phase. Eventually we are looking to develop a detailed and effective accessibility app for residents with disabilities to use and update, and ultimately we hope to address well-being accessibility.”
A website for the project, https://sites.google.com/site/accesskingstonfrontenac, is under development, and partnerships are being fostered with existing service providers.
In order to move forward, Halliday is hoping for some volunteers to step forward.
For more information, please see the web site or contact Kurt Halliday at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 615 375-9280.