I was on the number 1 Spring Garden on the weekend and there was a gentleman in a wheelchair waiting at Scotia Square to catch a bus. When the bus pulled to a stop he was refused service because the route is not wheekchair accessible and he was told that he would have to wait 45 minutes for the #14. What is the point of having these high priced/seating impoverished vehicles if they cannot be used for what they were built for in the first place? The buses don’t have enough room because they were designed for the purpose of carrying people in wheelchairs and yet they won’t pick-up someone in a wheelchair becuase it is a busy route and, yadda, yadda, yadda….
This article appears in Apr 24-30, 2008.
The reason that transit is buying low-floor units is that conventional high-floor units are being produced by only a couple of manufacturers nowadays thanks to lobbying by disability advocates and the fact that the US and many Canadian jurisdictions that fund transit properties force them to buy ADA compliant vehicles even though some of those buses may never run with a wheelchair on board. The only highfloor bus made in Canada is the Orion V and both NovaBus and New Flyer have dropped high-floor production in Canada. We can’t import US-made buses that don’t appear on Transport Canada’s import list.However, there are thousands of used and rebuilt NovaBus/MCI Classic high-floor models available from bus resellers in the States. Those buses were built in St-Eustache QC and can be imported without hassles. They’ll last another 5-10 years in our climate then you are back to the low-floor fleet once they get retired.Metro Transit offers wheelchair accessable service on specific routes only because not all stops are suitable for wheelchair loading/unloading. Can you imagine the lawsuit if a driver of a non-wheelchair specified had an incident occur while trying to be the nice guy and took on a non-authorised wheelchair passenger? The city wouldn’t accept responsability and
excellent and informative reply Ex. Thanks.
Thanks Homie. I neglected to mention that wheelchair accessable routes are identified in the riders guide, route map and on the city’s website. They are also identified on the bus stop signs for the following:# 3, 6, 7,9, 14, 15, 16, 51, 53, 54, 56, 61, 66, 72, 87, 88 and all LINK routes. Unless they changed things on the #66, some stops in Burnside and on the way to Sackville were not accessable due to lack of sidewalks and other obstacles.
Hey Ex-Hali… Those are my Keno numbers… How did you do that????What are you, the Rainman of fucking bus routes???
not rainman floyd, just someone who used to work in the bus industry and was very familiar with MT policies.
That’s cool Ex, I was just razzin you about banging off the numbers…And like Homie said it WAS informative about the bus manufacturers… I didn’t know any of that… Thx.
Ex hali is the go-to guy for all things bus related
He sure is Miles… He sure is…Gee.. I wish I was the “go-to-guy” for something…I wonder if there are any openings on this site for experts on particular topics… Let me know where there is a gap in the braintrust and I will pony up as need be…
Well Floyd, if you submit a CV and a brief bitch about your best area of know-it-allness to Homeslice he may notice you can fill a void in his otherwise extensive knowledge base. You certainly demonstrate an aptitude for bullshit detection and verbal gymnastics…i think maybe he could offer you a position on his staff.