GuelphToday received the following Letter to the Editor from reader Sonya Ogilvie, in regards to a recent experience with transit:
“You can’t take wagons on the bus,” the driver said matter-of-factly.
“What?” I looked over my shoulder in confusion at the stroller wagon where my sleeping infant rode. “But I’ve been riding the bus with it for months!”
She explained kindly enough that the rules had changed recently, where I could read up on it etc, and she still let me on the bus so that I could get home. Which was a very good thing, because Tuesday was a bad day.
My family and I have been living car-free for almost four years now, managing with walking, busing, and biking. It isn’t easy, but it has been workable. Until Tuesday. In the morning, my husband found that someone had stolen the rear hydraulic brakes off our cargo bike and cut other wires in the process. So instead of taking the bike to go grocery shopping, he took it to the bike shop for repairs.
I had planned to also ride the cargo bike to a counselling session in the afternoon. No worries. We had the bus as backup. So I bundled our infant into the BOB wagon, and off we went. I left my appointment at the EarlyOn centre in the mall thinking that the bus trip wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined it might be and that I should start making it more regularly. Until I learned the stroller wagon is no longer allowed on the bus.
As a mother of three children under five, the challenge of navigating the bus without a stroller that can seat all three (not to mention carry a diaper bag, snacks, water bottles, or anything I might have been going out to buy) is overwhelming. But it’s not just wagons that aren’t allowed on the bus, I now realize. Anything that can seat more than one child is not allowed, and heaven forbid the stroller have large wheels that make it easier to get on and off the bus or walk through snow or maneuvre the stroller – that would make it a jogging stroller, which is not allowed. So small wheels only, but you’d better not struggle too much because you aren’t allowed to ask for assistance in getting a stroller on or off the bus either.
This is all annoying enough for me as someone who chose to live without a car and has relatively good health, but what about my neighbours who cannot afford a vehicle? Some of them have as many or more young children as I do. What about people with twins? Guelph Transit’s restrictions for strollers make transit less than desirable for any of these situations, let alone for people who currently use a car as their main mode of transportation. If we really mean to make meaningful steps toward more sustainable transportation options, these sorts of restrictions are backwards. At minimum, we need a public transit system that allows all people to accomplish their daily tasks, kids in tow.
Sonya Ogilvie,
Guelph
