Fiona’s away at The Pitch in Bristol this week so we’ve asked BBS contributor Lucy to provide us with her own version of the Wednesday Wrap.
The day I found out I had to do this week’s Wednesday Wrap, I was clueless as to what I should write. Then I witnessed an awful and bizarre incident on London bus – The Lady in a Wheelchair vs. The Shopping Bags. It was terrible to experience but a brilliant source for the Wrap.
It happened on Friday as I was on my way to Richmond to meet some friends before we all went to uni this weekend. It confirmed for me that I definitely won’t miss London transport while I’m away – my friend and I waited for half an hour for a bus that’s meant to come every 10 minutes. When it did arrive things got even worse.
The bus was busy though not rammed. As we got onto it I noticed a woman sat towards the back of the bus who was ranting in the ear of the person in front of her about the bus service (maybe she has never used public transport on a Friday at 7pm?). She then had a moan when she had to let someone sit down next her to and even nudged a friend of mine, Bianca, as if to say that she should have given up her space, even though there were other seats available – so we knew that this was a difficult woman.
However, events went rapidly downhill after a lady in a wheelchair tried to get onto the bus. Somebody had left their shopping in the way, so that she couldn’t get into the wheelchair space and as a result of this she nearly rolled off the bus!! You’ll never guess whose shopping it was.
I thought I should step in and help her out a bit. While I was holding this lady’s wheelchair to ensure she stayed upright on the bus, the grumpy woman from the back of the bus kicked off because she had to move two of her shopping bags! She was saying things like “that space is for shopping… where am I going to put these now?!”
Everyone on the bus was in complete shock when she went on to say that if she wanted to use the space for her wheelchair “she can move the bags herself!” One guy then picked up the shopping, handed it to the grumpy woman, very forcefully and said “someone needs this space. It’s not for shopping, this is a wheelchair space”… and so on. Basically he was saying what we were all thinking.
Astonishingly the grumpy woman remained completely unashamed of herself throughout, somehow adamant that the wheelchair space was really supposed to be a personal storage facility for her shopping. After a 5 minute standoff (it got pretty tense!!) we reached Richmond and I got off the bus. I don’t know what else happened but I’m sure there’s more to the story as neither of them looked like backing down!
I found the whole scenario so disgraceful and unbelievable that I thought I’d check out TFL’s policy on wheelchairs when it comes to buses and other transport.
As we all know the woman was completely wrong! That space is designated for wheelchair and buggy users, with wheelchair users having priority. Just in case that woman’s reading I’ll repeat that: the wheelchair space on buses is for… wheelchairs; if you want your shopping to get its own special space, take a cab. That’s just the way it is.
The woman’s behaviour (and also the reaction of the man who stood up to her) made me think of something I heard recently – that there’s no point having accessible facilities if the people using them have inaccessible minds. It might sound a little bit cheesy but it really is the case, as this little episode went to show. You just hope people would be more thoughtful.
While reading the TFL website I also found out that“35 additional stations are now more accessible for wheelchair users from platform to train.” Also 19 more tube stations across London have boarding ramps making travelling around independently more do-able!
Here’s a list of the stations with the new ramps: Caledonian Road, East Ham, Elm Park, Epping, Farringdon, Hainault, Hillingdon, Hounslow East, Kew Gardens, Mile End, Richmond, Rickmansworth, Roding Valley, South Woodford, Theydon Bois, Upney, Uxbridge, West Finchley and Wood Lane.
It’s good to see an improvement from TFL. I don’t want to sound negative but it would be great to see all stations become fully accessible sooner rather than later.
Before I go off to enjoy Freshers Week, I should mention one or two things that have happened at BBS this week. One thing was that Fiona was in Time Out London Magazine this week! She wrote an article called “My Perfect Accessible Weekend” – have a read, it’s been posted on our twitter!
Also, as I mentioned at the beginning, Fiona is in Bristol today for The Pitch so it will be interesting to hear from her about that next week. I’m sure she’s been trying to find some stylish and accessible venues in between networking opportunities!