Rebranding Canterbury’s buses to a single ‘teal’ livery has left people with vision disabilities feeling disempowered and like they’re “not part of society.”
The new teal colour being used on buses is causing problems for people with vision disabilities who cannot see them coming.
Environment Canterbury (ECan), which is in charge of public transport in Christchurch, has unveiled a new teal coloured livery for all city buses other than the Orbiter.
The design, chosen by the regional council to reflect the city’s links to water, replaces the brightly painted buses the city used to have, that people with vision disabilities found much easier to see.
The Canterbury Regional Council spent $93,887 on the new colour and a design reflecting Canterbury’s native species and natural landscapes.
The money went on “discovery research, concept development” and “cultural narrative development,” amongst other things. Still, not it seems on making sure it was fit for purpose for a group of people often reliant on public transport.
Disabled Persons Assembly head Prudence Walker said negative feedback about the hard-to-see teal buses had been coming in thick and fast since its rollout in September.
“Teal’s a really difficult colour to have any contrast around and blends in quite nicely, which makes it really hard for people with low vision to be able to identify it against whatever background that’s going past or maybe if there was a whole lot of buses all lined up together, that might make it more difficult to identify.”
The old system of using four different bright colours depending on which route the bus was on was easier for people with vision disabilities to see and easier for those with learning disabilities to understand, she said. Given the reliance of so many of her members on public transport to get around, she would have thought they would have to be consulted before any changes were made.
