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.