So after long days which really tested the battery of my chair, I had to get specific routes home which meant I wouldn’t have to travel long distances in my chair. The video above shows me doing so on one evening to be blocked at the bus stop by a vehicle parking where it shouldn’t.
Tag: Bus
Two wheelchair users, one bus.
It always surprises me, but it probably shouldn’t anymore, that public transport is generally only designed for one person in a wheelchair to use at a time. We don’t in fact all know each other and coordinate when we need to do things together, contrary to popular belief.
As I write this I’m on a bus on the way to pick up some medication for a family member, I like to be useful and it’s not often I can do that without actually being in the way, but today happens to be one of those days.
There was someone else that wanted to get on the bus in a wheelchair, but they couldn’t because I’m already on it. I feel bad as if somewhere it’s my fault, even though logically I know that it isn’t because I didn’t design the buses. But can you imagine if the roles were reversed?
If public transport was only designed to take one non- disabled person at a time? How annoyed would they be at having to wait for a bus with a space on all the time?
But it doesn’t matter that disabled people have to wait. It doesn’t matter that wheelchair users can never go out with other friends in wheelchairs when they need to use public transport. We almost always have to meet them at the place we’re going. We don’t get the full experince.
This is made even worse when you realise that society actually pushes disabled people together. They think it would be easier for us all to be friends at a young age, because no one who isn’t disabled should have to be friends with someone who is. But then don’t create a society where you’re actually able to do things as friends. It’s just weird to me.
Not being the easy option.
What bothers you and why?
Take now as I start this post, I am on a bus, and the people I’m with decided to go sit at the back. I know there are supposed to be the better seats on the bus, but I can only sit in one place on the bus, and there were seats near me when we got on, I’d be lying if I said their choice doesn’t bother me. How can it not?
They could have chosen to sit with me, but they didn’t. And every little time someone makes this choice, it reinforces what I think I’ve always known, I’m not more important than the better option.
My disability is an inconvenience to them, to be honest, it is to me as well, but I can’t escape it. They can though, and worse than that, they choose to. I don’t know if it’s made better or worse by the fact I can’t blame them though.
I just wish society made being with me the easier option.
Buses.
So today I experienced one of the most annoying elements of accessibility and one of the best I’ve seen at least where I live, in a very short space of time.
The bus I tried to get this morning already had a wheelchair user on it, which meant I couldn’t get on it. This needs to change. We need to create buses with space for multiple wheelchair users at the same time. This is particularly true when society tends to push disabled people together, by segregating and excluding us from the rest of the word. I’m thinking of Special Educational Needs (SEND) Schools specifically here. It doesn’t make sense to force disabled children into the same social spaces then deny them the social space to go out together as they become teenagers and adults.
Then a newer bus, while still only with one space, did not involve the awkward turn other buses have apparently deemed necessary for wheelchair users to have to make. So it’s an improvement, in a way. Not as big of an improvement as having multiple spaces on a bus for those in wheelchairs, but it’s something.
Can you imagine if buses only let one person on at a time? How ineffective they would be at their job? But we’ve deemed that an okay place for disabled people to be in. That is something that will never make sense to me.
My Inaccessible Life 