POV | I want to change the world, one ramp at a time

By Luke Anderson, as told to Now or Never

My life changed in a split second.

In the fall of 2002, I crashed my mountain bike and sustained a spinal cord injury. All of a sudden I was introduced to a world that is not well-suited for someone who uses a wheelchair.

At the time, I worked at an engineering firm. It was a great job but the building the office was in had three steps to get up to the lobby level where the elevator was. This meant that every time I needed to get in and out of the building, I had to rely on someone to help me deploy this big, heavy folding aluminum ramp.

Just imagine what that would be like! To have to wait on someone to help you every time you wanted to get in and out of a building. How that would frustrate you and encroach on your spontaneity and independence.

My frustration with that issue reached a tipping point when I combined it with all of these other locations that I wasn't able to access. I also noticed all of these new buildings that were being constructed with entryways that had steps.

When I see a stepped entryway, it gives me a feeling of disappointment. There are so many establishments that I can't get in to... and it sucks. I'd say for every business that I can get in to there's two or three that I can't.

I wanted to get the issue of accessibility on people's radar, so in 2011 a friend and I built 13 ramps for businesses in the Junction neighbourhood of Toronto. We thought that it was just going to be a little one-off project... but the response was so amazing we had to take it to different parts of the city. And so, StopGap was born. 

StopGap has become a very important project that furthers the conversation about the importance of an inclusive society. It's not just mobility-aid-users that have a problem with a stepped entryways, it's all kinds of people! Someone that uses a wheelchair or a walker, somebody with a suitcase, parents with strollers.

However, StopGap is just that: a stopgap solution. These ramps aren't a perfect solution to the problem. They're a stopgap measure that will hopefully lead us to a better idea — a more permanent solution.

You know, accessibility was probably the furthest thing off of my radar before before I needed to use a wheelchair. But as soon as I needed to use the wheelchair, it was front and centre.

Think of a horse with blinders on. A horse wears blinders to prevent it from being distracted by things on either side of it. A horse without its blinders on has almost 340-degree field of view. A horse can actually see behind itself.

I feel like I had my blinders removed when I was introduced to this new way of life. I was given a newfound perspective and the opportunity to see life through a new lens. I believe that I was only seeing a small piece of the pie — that was seeing life with blinders on. I was living a kind of selfish life, just riding my bike every day. I wasn't really benefiting society all that much. Sure, I was having a blast, but if you compare that way of life to the life I lead today, making the world a better place...

There are definitely aspects of my old way of life that I miss, but what I'm doing now is incredible! I've been given a gift and I don't know if I'd trade that in.