[ 
Mood: Fed Up WIth Life ]
[ Currently: Breastfeeding my son – Situation Normal ]
On Saturday a woman in Ottawa tried to get on a bus with a stroller. The bus driver denied her access. The two argued and then the driver shut the door and drove off. One problem (of many), the woman’s two year old had climbed on the bus before her mommy, as she has been trained to do so for safety’s sake.
This has exploded in the media. The driver has been assigned to retraining and the driver’s union is blaming the mother.
The problem with OC Transpo and strollers starts right at the top. Witness Alain Mercier’s (OC Transpo’s chief) backhanded insult to mothers with his “SUV of strollers” comments in July. With this kind of attitude eminating from their leader, and a lack of a clear policy, it is no wonder that a classist and sexist culture has developed among the rank and file.
Let’s be blunt, the women with strollers who are using OC Transpo are doing so because they have no other option. Why else would they be waiting for a bus on a busy street like Innes Road on a Saturday night in October? Given that these women are generally working class or recent immigrants, they are less likely to speak up for themselves in these types of situations. This makes them easy targets for the ignorant comments of those who have probably never had to use public transit to take small children to appointments.
Another issue that this raises is safety. Abandoning a woman with small children at the side of a busy road on a cold October night seems to fly in the face of OC Transpo’s Transsecure program. Aren’t bus drivers supposed to be keeping an eye out for citizens who are in distress and not be the cause of distress? I am certain that Ms. Pacey is not the first woman to be denied access to the bus due to a stroller. She is the first, however, to speak out and is to be commended for that. Given that there are many others who have gone through this experience, we are lucky that none of them, or their children, have become a tragic statistic.
Since senior leadership at OC Transpo has proven to be less than enlightened on this isse, it is now time for the city’s transportation committee to step in and make a decision. This policy should extend to anything that might block an aisle, be it strollers, walkers, shopping carts, suitcases or wheelchairs. Some of those are larger than they really need to be, but they have not drawn the ire of the bus company the way the stroller has. What else is a scooter, but an “SUV of wheelchairs”, but Alain Mercier would never dare say that, would he?