In the same week that Citybus place ten brand new low floor easy access buses into service we get a familiar story in the local paper:
A YOUNG wheelchair user says he is being made to feel “inadequate” after being left stranded by up to five buses a day. Daniel Brabazon, from Plympton, is demanding Citybus improves disabled access to its vehicles. The 23-year-old, who is paralysed from the waist down, is regularly denied access to the company’s city centre to Derriford Hospital services. He has complained that they rarely boast a wheelchair ramp – and drivers are not allowed to help users board.
The Herald accompanied him on his journey to work, which begins at 10.20am from a bus stop near his home. A friendly driver helped Daniel up a manual lift-down wheelchair ramp and onto the number 22 Citybus service to Royal Parade. But a quick connection there was impossible when the number 28 he needed to catch arrived without any ramp facility.
Daniel said he faced the same problem with the 42 and 28/A services, both also destined for Derriford Hospital, on a daily basis. The ‘low rider’ vehicles, designed to lower to kerb-height so wheelchair users can simply roll on and off, are useless where kerbs are not raised.
Responding to Daniel’s complaint, acting general manager Peter Oliver said around 75 per cent of buses were fitted with ramps. But he added: “Users of local bus services must be able to board and alight bus services unaided.”
This is Plymouth
As is often the case this story has raised plenty of comments with quite a discussion on the old wheelchair v pram argument. I don't know if there is any difference between First Group and Citybus policy in this area but many buses do have notices saying that wheelchair users have priority but I have seen arguments when the mothers have refused to move, stating that they were their first, they have paid their fare and they have just as much right to travel on the bus as anyone else. The vast majority of passengers will do their best to move and do what ever is needed to accommodate wheelchair users but its not always possible to make room. I have also witnessed one occasion when a wheelchair user gave a driver a mouthful of abuse when the driver stopped but explained he had no room (he had a full standing load). He offered to radio back to ask the next bus to watch out for him and try and keep some room. Apparently the two previous buses had just driven straight past so you could understand the passengers frustration but that was still no excuse for the tirade of abuse he gave to the one driver who did stop. It does highlight that at the end of the day, whatever policy is put in place by ‘head office; its the driver who takes the brunt when passengers dont like it.
Unrealtime Display
On a totally unrelated issue I notice that the less than brilliant real time display system that is in place on a few lucky bus stops seems to have given up the ghost. Certainly all the bus stops I have noticed this last few days the display has just been the current date and time. Apparently some just tell you to look up the bus timetables! This system has never really fulfilled all the promises made of it, and was never installed at enough bus stops. Have they just now given up on it all together or is it just at temporary blip?
Wheelchair ramp photo by Oran Viriyincy
Elsewhere on the net
- Cross-linking’s actually nothing new, of course, and many city to suburb services in many towns have seen at least some cross-linking at some point in their history Omnibuses
- Then there was the huge intellectual challenge of using the toilet on Southern's trains. It used to be so simple: "Gentlemen, lift the seat" and "Not while the train is standing at a station". But now ... Public Transport Experience
- This week's Sunday Lost Scenes comes from Oxford in 2006... Southern England Bus Scene
- Most bus enthusiasts will be aware of King Alfred buses, one-time operators in the Winchester area Public Transport Experience
- Sadly yesterday, the question posed in the original blog post about First's retrenchment has become a brutal reality. Omnibuses
- As you will have been informed by from Monday's Sunday Lost Scenes, I went to Oxford on Sunday 1st April and managed to capture some of the rarer operations on camera Southern England Bus Scene
- A-Line Coaches has (finally!) received this fine looking ALX200 bodied Volvo B6LE, from, quite obviously, Stagecoach! PTOTPA
- fbb is in Wantage and on a search for bus information, a search which has proved fruitless on previous visits. Public Transport Experience
- Avid readers of the blog will have heard it all before (twice, in fact…), but this year we’re definitely off to the Penzance Running Day - even if it kills me. 270KTA
- Wilts & Dorset are in the process of receiving a large delivery of Volvo B7RLE/Wright Eclipse Urban mark 2 buses to upgrade the More routes in Bournemouth Southern England Bus Scene
Buses journeys in Plymouth are going to get a lot noisier over the next few years:
