by Tara Schaeffer

Created on: July 08, 2008

City Transportation....When Did it Go All Wrong?

Okay, let me start off by saying that public transportation is great to the people who have maybe one or two kids and people in wheelchairs or no children at all. That is wonderful. But what I am talking about is for the person who has more than two children. For the mom who has three little ones and need to take the to the doctor's for their appointment. What about her? What about the children? The mom has to take all her little ones out of the stoller, fold up the stroller and somehow get her three little ones onto the bus along with her children and then she needs to pay for her riding the bus. There is a space for wheelchairs that most of the time go unused. What about if that space is not being used to have it be used for the mom and her stroller? Does she really need to take all her kids out, fold up the stroller and then struggle? What if she needs to take more than one bus? Then she needs to do that over and over again. Why must a parent have to be put through that?

Why not make space for strollers? There is tons of space on a city bus that could be allowed for strollers. They always have two spots for wheelchairs. Only once in my 6 years of riding buses have I seen both spots taken up. Only once. I am sure that one of those spots can be used for parking a stroller with the mom's children in it if she needs that help. Yesterday I saw a mom with her 5 children and a triple stroller struggle to get everyone on the bus. I sat and talked with her for a little bit. She told me that it would be so helpful if there was a way that she could just push the stroller on the bus rather than go through all she was going through. Then there wasnt even enough places for her children to sit next to her. That is so sad. If there was a space for her triple stroller then she would of been right there next to her young kids and her older children would of been next to her as well.

So, can we all take some time in our busy lives to see if we can get that passed? It will be so helpful to people out there. It will make their travel time so much easier. The lady that I ran into yesterday on the bus with the 5 children has given me a reason to write this and see if we can get the bus layout changed somewhat to help out the parents out there who could use it and make their day a little easier. Also make the children's day a little easier. Is that what life is all about. Doing things for other people to make things easier on them.

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