Metro Transit striving for more accessible buses
Posted Aug 2, 2011 06:21:40 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Metro Transit is responding to complaints about accessibility on city buses with a plan that includes several policy and operational changes to improve accessibility on all of its routes.
The agency worked with the Human Rights Commission and two passengers who filed complaints about not being able to use most of the Transit routes – even though most buses are wheelchair accessible.
Tammy Robertson, who uses a wheelchair, said she was often mistreated by bus drivers who pass her by when she’s waiting at a stop.
“It was actually discouraging,” Robertson tells News 95.7 “It made me feel like I was different from everybody else.”
Robertson said the bus is her only option for transportation and she’s on the bus up to four times a day.
“I had drivers who were driving past me. I wasn’t being allowed on buses, or only being allowed on at certain stops and the drivers weren’t being very accommodating,” she said.
She made a complaint to the Human Rights Commission – and she wasn’t alone.
“We were looking at our files and we realized that we had at least two and more complaints involving accessibility at Metro Transit,” said HRC’s Gerald Hashey. “There was enough there to warrant looking at whether or not disabled passengers were being discriminated by Metro Transit.”
The commission brought the two sides together to devise the plan, which will be launched late this fall.
The changes include:
— passengers using wheelchairs will be able to use low-floor buses serving any route, providing the ramp can be lowered so they can board the bus. Now, low-floor buses only pick up passengers if the route is designated fully accessible.
— passengers, with proper identification, who require attendants will have their attendant’s fare included in their own.
— snow clearing at the Mumford and Dartmouth terminals will be improved and increased to a 24-hour priority.
— the Request a Stop program, which provides for disembarking between stops for safety at night, will extend to disabled passengers at any time of day if it becomes reasonably necessary to accommodate them. This would occur in situations of adverse weather or for safety reasons.
