Intercity US Bus Travel with a Power Wheelchair

[jesse_the_k]

I’ve visited Chicago by bus three times–it’s a 2.5 hour trip from Madison. I hope you can benefit from my experience. In the US most intercity travel uses large buses called “over the road” or “tour” or “charter” coaches. Luggage goes underneath, while the passengers sit high, above the roofs of cars and most SUVs. Most passengers board by climbing at least six stairs on a spiral staircase in front.

For those of us who can’t climb the stairs, there’s a very tiny lift. The bus company requires 24 hours notice if I want to ride, because wheelchair users never have family emergencies. In general, I bought my ticket six weeks in advance. But based on six trips’ experience, the driver is always surprised to see me at the curb. So after the walking passengers have slung their luggage underneath and boarded, the driver gets busy:

1. To make space for a wheelchair, the last three seats in the bus must be folded up. This requires removing the rubber seals that prevent the seat slide rails from collecting dust, gravel, gum wrappers, and less pleasant crap. Then the driver must locate cleverly camouflaged release levers, and slide the seats forward.
2. To deploy the lift, the driver opens a secret panel on the outside of the bus, grabs a pendant control and then opens up the wheelchair door overhead. In addition to an extensive instruction sheet plastered on the equipment, every place that needs attention is sequentially numbered in inch-high letters. Reliably the driver will complain the entire time about how hard it is to do this–seems to require around 10 minutes grumbling. (A knowledgeable operator can accomplish this in around 3 minutes.)
3. They insist I board backwards, looking out to the sidewalk. This results in my casters facing forward, which prevents the ramp’s lip at the sidewalk end from closing, creating an very loud warning tone.
4. The tiny lift has a very long ramp connecting its platform to the high floor of the bus. So I must back into the bus, somehow find clear space that isn’t ramp, and pull forward into the tie down space the driver created in step 1. It’s really tight quarters back there.
5. My final driver, thankfully, was very calm. She admitted it was her first time, but demonstrated that she’d paid close attention during training. She welcomed my suggestions. Most impressively, she diagnosed and solved the caster problem herself, asking permission before gently kicking my front tires around so they tucked under my wheelchair seat.
6. Although drivers offer to secure me, I really didn’t want to have someone leaning all over me who didn’t know what they were doing. I jammed my chair against the side of the bus and it was pretty okay. (The securement isn’t for my safety, since most wheelchairs aren’t crash-tested seats. A 300lb wheelchair could be a dangerous projectile in a crash.)

Permitting me to board forwards would solve the caster problem, although some chairs’ anti-tippers would no doubt hang on the ramp’s lip.

The good news is that I can ride over-the-road buses at all. They were originally exempted from the ADA in 1990, and the Federal government only required all buses to be accessible by 2012, twenty-two years later.

Some quality time with YouTube showed me that there are many combinations of lift and bus manufacturers, so each bus driver has to learn the particulars of their setup. This uncaptioned 2012 video shows what I encountered on my HAMILTON adventure.

Comments

[sovay]

since most wheelchairs aren’t crash-tested seats.

May I ask why not?

[jesse_the_k]

It's a trade-off between comfort, weight, and support.

Bog-standard folding manual chairs--what you see at the hospital--would simply collapse in a crash.

Lightweight manuals tend to have low backs--maybe 12in high--so there's nothing to catch the shoulders and neck when thrown back in a crash.

My power chair has a higher back (and some even have headrests) but they're held to the frame by 4 screws.

The design is optimized for function, comfort, and adaptability, while car seats can be as sturdy and heavy as all get out.

Kid-sized chairs are crash tested, and I know that kids in chairs *must* use shoulder belts (attached to the vehicle, not the chair, while the chair is held in place by four-point restraints).

In Europe, it's standard for wheelchair riders to face backwards, opposite the direction of travel, since (like kid car seats) that offers maximum protection. But not in the U.S.

[sovay]

It's a trade-off between comfort, weight, and support.

Thanks for the explanation!

[davidgillon]

I was surprised to read the other week that UK coach travel actually requires the wheelchair to have been crash tested*, https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/trio-of-coach-companies-agree-wheelchair-rule-changes-after-legal-warnings/ (buried near the end). Unfortunately I wasn't surprised to hear the coach companies have been playing fast and loose with the law requiring them to carry disabled people.

Travelling back to the direction of travel may well be a thing in some parts of Europe, but it's definitely not universal. UK trains with two wheelchair spaces usually have them facing in opposite directions, so someone will always be face on to the direction of travel (personally I've never once been secured while travelling on public transport).

*Crash testing is one of the reasons I'n dubious about in-wheelchair air travel. Crash tresting for roads, and crash testing for air travel are very different things - and let's face it, almost every manual out there has the seat secured against a vertical collapse by a couple of velcro straps, and I'm willing to bet that hasn't been checked against a multiple-G vertical impact.

[sonia]

... wow. That's a lot of fuss and inconvenience for you to tolerate, and at the same time, like you said, at least there's a way for you to ride the big buses.

Makes me grateful in retrospect for the cheerful nonchalance the city bus drivers show in deploying their ramp and helping wheelchair-using passengers get settled.

[jesse_the_k]

Amen to cheerful nonchalance!

I know almost all the drivers by now, which is a nice smaller-town feeling. I make their jobs a little easier by highlighting the tie-down points with hot-pink duct tape. (Surely the highest, best use of hot-pink duct tape.)

[killing_rose]

It says something that I legit stared at this and went, "Wait. Buses have to have a lift now?"

Mind you, I haven't ridden a Greyhound/Peter Pan/wtfever since college, as I swore off them at 12, but I was gonna say last time I did in college, it definitely was not accessible.

[jesse_the_k]

Yep, it definitely wasn't.

All the transit folks--long distance and municipal buses, as well as trains and subways, dug their heels in mightily when ADA was being drafted.

Mostly, they couldn't imagine how it would work, mechanically. Hey! We put men on the moon. As they've learned, it's quite possible. Because the OTR companies delayed so long, their tools are as complex as the city buses were in the 20th century.

Now our city buses use the AmSeCo Lok-It system. Takes 30 seconds to connect my chair, and the straps all have self-tensioning reels like a car seat belt, so I can roll back and forth to tighten myself down.