Does public transport need to get better – of course. And that would make it more accessible to more people. But not to everyone.
It’s not just about crowding. And it’s not just about what’s feasible in US cities. Who’s going to carry the luggage for the walk to and from your stop? Who’s going to look after bulky medical equipment while you do your shopping? How will you get home when you need to go immediately and can’t wait for a ride share.
It’s great your city has a dual-a-ride bus service for disabled people, but what about people travelling between cities? Or people who live in the middle of nowhere with no other disabled people for miles?
If you want to serve the rural areas round where I live, you need a vehicle small enough to fit down narrow winding lanes and over ancient stone bridges barely wide enough to fit a modern car. So that vehicle will probably only fit a couple of wheelchairs plus luggage. So when it comes to long journeys between cities, or in more rural places, those dial-a-ride share pick up drop off vehicles might as well be private vehicles anyway, because if you only have one passenger on a ride share, the total journey more than doubles when the bus drives back to its base.
And often disabled people will suddenly need to go home. If you’re relying on a ride share like the one you mentioned that’s either pre arranged or you have to call them and wait for them to get to you – neither of those are good when you need to get somewhere urgently. Sometimes waiting five minutes for a bus is too much.
Also you should bear in mind that this photo shows pretty much the absolute bare minimum of luggage you should be imagining. Most places like hostels and hotels don’t have a ceiling hoist fitted, and the shower chairs provided aren’t usable by a lot of us who need tilt in space chairs/ specific postural support. A lot of the time if I’m going somewhere, I need to bring my mobile hoist and my own specialist shower chair/commode. Those are big bulky bits of kit, and in the case of the hoist, pretty heavy. So that’s at least two able bodied people’s carrying capacity immediately gone. And that’s on top of all the stuff in the picture. So even if it’s just a two minute walk with the luggage, it would require several people which isn’t realistic.
And then there’s people who have bulky equipment like oxygen that they keep in their cars. It’s not possible to lug all that stuff around the shops with you if you’ve come by bus, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving that stuff in the care of someone else.
So yeah, things could be a lot better and more money does need to be spent. But that’s not the whole picture. Some severely disabled people will never be able to rely entirely on public transport and should be listened to when explaining this.
