.
On the accessible public transit front, I guess the learned researchers on
this list take abuse any time, but seldom a bus. Last year I did take a bus
in Oxford - which prides itself on having everything exceptionally well
thought out -- you can't cross a road without knocking at least one PhD off
her bike -- and noticed the instructions on the bus for wheelchair users,
which stated:
1. You are a complete idiot.
2. You must turn your wheelchair into this confined space, arrest it facing
backward in the closest proximity to the restraining board, wind the
officially supplied piece of rope thrice around your neck, and remain in
this position for the duration of your itinerary.
3. You must be Accompanied by a Person Capable, in the event of a Fire, of
picking you and your chair up and clearing you out of the way of proper
people.
4. Only one wheelchair shall be carried at a time, and that only on Tuesday
afternoons in months ending in 'y'.
5. Do not chew tobacco or spit while the Omnibus is in motion.
I quote the above from memory (and have, of course, translated from the
Latin), so the phraseology might not be exact -- but one perceives
adequately the broad reluctance of the ominous omnibus company to comply
with their recent obligation to provide some sort of space into which an
intrepid and preferably hypothetical wheelchair user (articulated, if
possible) might be crammed, and their keen anticipation that if the driver
were ever to apply the brakes instead of simply ploughing straight through
the shoals of PhD-laden cyclists, any bus-using wheeli-rider's head would
immediately get detached from their shoulders and would bounce around the
bus to the inconvenience of the little old ladies trying to read and
critically review Wittgenstein on the way home from the shops. Caput.
I hope this may enlighten some American transit researchers who might be
thinking of visiting the Home of Lost Causes (also lost gloves, library
books and bicycle chains - the latter may be retrievable from the Porter's
Lodge every second Wednesday during the Lachrymosal term, except in Leap
Years, when application should be made to the Proctor's office).
m99m
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