Walking in Waterloo Region

[tomh009]

(In pedestrian/transit-oriented Tokyo, major street crossings are often by pedestrian bridges, which effectively cause a pedestrian detour and require the use of stairs -- yet I have never heard anyone complaining about them.)

How do they handle accessibility? Not everyone can use stairs.

It's a good question.  I rarely see people in wheelchairs in Tokyo but I do see, much more often than here, very old or handicapped people walking, albeit slowly and often with the help of a cane.  (And I have never seen even one scooter.)  Is it a cultural difference?  People walking, even if slowly, can use overpasses.

Now, some overpasses do have either elevators or escalators, a few have (steep!) ramps, but most do not.  In general, I think what you would need to do is to look for the next intersection that has a crosswalk rather than a bridge.