From My Bottom Step

I’ve finally received a letter from Larry Ducharme (LTC General Manager) in response to my previous inquiries about ‘Courtesy Seating’ on LTC buses:

London Transit provides service to all customers including those that require strollers, wheelchairs and scooters, provided there is enough room on the bus to safely do so. Courtesy seats are provided for those who could benefit from them on a first come first serve basis. While the operator can request passengers to vacate the seats to make room for others who may appear to require these seats or area more pressingly, it is not mandatory for a person to do so – the ultimate decision to move rests with the person. This policy is included in the Standing Operating Procedures which are provided to all operators.

We have, however, discovered that our most recent order of buses has conflicting decals on board which state that the seats must be vacated for persons in wheelchairs. These decals are being removed from the vehicles bringing buses into conformity with current policy.

With reference to your concern about the size of strollers, London Transit cannot, and should not, police the size of strollers. If strollers of any size or number create an unsafe situation, the operator has the discretion to not allow a stroller to be brought on the bus.

For the record, LTC didn’t “discover” the conflicting decals. They were forced to acknowledge the situation by me in my 2008/10/09 letter: “Mr. Ford’s answer is also contrary to signage which has just recently appeared in some buses, which appears to accord priority to wheelchair users.”

So. This is what it appears it comes down to. You cannot be ordered to give up your seat, not even for somebody in a wheelchair. You now know that by virtue of the fact that you read this blog. I wonder if the LTC will bother to tell other users?

Background:

2008/09/06 letter to LTC re courtesy seating
2008/09/07 post about courtesy seating
2008/09/24 LTC Meeting: moved/seconded by Williams that letter be referred to Administration
2008/10/09 letter to LTC re Administration response
2008/10/09 post about Administration response
2008/10/29 LTC Meeting: no mention of letter in the agenda
2008/11/21 resent letter to Caroline Roy
2008/11/28 inquiry to Caroline Roy
2008/12/03 Caroline Roy email re decision to omit letter from 2008/11/26 agenda because of pretense it wasn’t received before their arbitrary 2008/11/19 deadline
2009/01/07 still no minutes for 2008/10/29 meeting
2009/01/11 2008/10/29 minutes and 2009/01/14 agenda finally online but no 2008/11/26 minutes; my letter ignored again.
2009/02/11 Larry Ducharme’s written reply.