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We have 2,700 acres of land here. Four-hundred acres are cultivated into formal gardens like the one we’re in today,
the rest are wild lands, natural lands. Twenty-seven kilometres of hiking trails; 220,000 visitors a year.
In the last couple of years, we’ve been under what we’re calling a rejuvenation project.
The thrust of it was to make RBG centre and RBG itself more accessible.
We built the atrium specifically to create access to Henry Tunnel and that takes you to a ton,
I mean several kilometres in here of hard-packed or paved paths,
through all of the rose gardens, through to the tea house, and all of that sort of stuff.
Special needs parking was far away from the building;
people had to weave through the parking lot. So we put a bunch of spots next to the building.
So now you come out of your car, out of your vehicle, there’s three ramps,
then after that it’s a flat service to the front door.
And the doors now are photosensitive, so as you come up to the door, it opens for you.
There’s two new washrooms, totally wheelchair accessible.
The elevators are large and doored on both sides.
There’s Braille in the elevators, the buttons are lower, so it’s a little easier to get at.
So, any sort of disability is going to be addressed there.
We actually brought in people to tell us what we needed,
sort of the outside consultants, that sort of thing, to make sure it worked.
One of the main goals that we did in the accessibility advisory committee was review site plans.
We did do the new renovations here for the Royal Botanical Gardens.
Everything that we recommended, they’ve all been incorporated into the new site.
I’m really impressed with the photosensitive doors.
Most of the surfaces right up until here, are hard surfaces and that, easy to wheel about.
The elevator was easily utilized.
In doing so, they’re going to see an increase in volume
in the type of people that will be visiting the Royal Botanical Gardens as well.
We are aiming to simply have a best-in-class customer service.
We have lots of special needs groups that come in, so we’re very used to what they require.
The staff is completely trained to address any issues like that.
Clearly, we want to be a welcoming place, and we do everything we can to make sure that happens.