Low-floor buses are not viable alternative to DATS
My adult son uses the Disabled Adult Transit Service (DATS).
In the March issue of the DATS newsletter, there is an item from Edmonton Transit urging DATS riders to take the LRT or low-floor buses. This is the latest salvo in the city’s ongoing war on DATS.
Neither my son nor I take the LRT. In doesn’t run in our neighbourhood.
I ride low-floor buses every day and they are not “accessible” for the disabled. The priority seating section is nearly always full to overflowing. I’ve seen disabled passengers denied rides on these buses — sometimes in bad weather — because there’s no room.
My son can’t take these buses in winter; his motorized wheelchair can seize up in the cold.
What’s the point of him waiting in a filthy, freezing bus shelter for a bus that may not have room for him?
Equipment on these low-floor buses can fail. Sometimes the wheelchair ramp doesn’t deploy and wheelchairs have been known to fall o the ramp. The mechanism for securing the chair can fail, trapping the rider. The last time my son was on a low-floor bus, the wheelchair seatbelt was damaged — someone had tried to cut it in half.
The bus / LRT system isn’t safe. A fatal shooting at the Stadium LRT station, violent robberies at the Coliseum station and the brutal beating of a bus driver are just some of the incidents that have occurred. I’ve seen screaming matches between drivers and passengers trying to ride for free. I’ve seen people drinking, sniffing glue and passed out on the bus.
Why should my gentle, defenceless son be exposed to the very worst that Edmonton has to offer?
For years, I have been trying to document and raise the problems with disabled transportation in Edmonton. I have written dozens of letters and have been met with a mean, miserable and miserly spirit both at city hall and at Edmonton Transit.
It has been made clear to me that DATS is a major inconvenience to the city.
It’s too bad that DATS doesn’t pay for itself, but neither does the Anthony Henday ring road. My son pays full fare to ride DATS, as do thousands of other riders and their escorts.
The city insists that lowfloor buses are an alternative to DATS. But they are not.
There is very little sympathy for DATS at city hall. It is regarded as an unnecessary, unprofitable, luxury limousine service.
I think the city has a lot of nerve trying to badger my son into using a dirty, dangerous bus service that has absolutely no room for him.
The LRT expansion seems to be doing OK. It is being rammed through city council and rammed through neighbourhoods that resist.
What DATS and ETS really need are 100 new buses and hundreds of new drivers. How about introducing a toll road to pay for this?
The city should put its money where its mouth is and get o our backs.
Isabelle Foord, Edmonton