SASKATOON – For a person in a wheelchair, traveling takes a lot more planning.
For Lynette Machushek of Yorkton, it is sometimes easier to stay home than to face the hassle of traveling by bus in her wheelchair. She has to climb out of her chair and into the bus or get the bus driver to carry her up the stairs and down the aisle.
“It ends up being a long procedure,” said Machushek.
For the past year Saskatchewan Transportation Company has attempted to deal with the problem by having two wheelchair-accessible coaches available across the province. Given 72 hours notice, the coaches can be taken to any centre normally serviced by the STC. They have lifts for chairs and there is room for two wheelchairs at the back. There are special seatbelts built in for the chairs and the washrooms are also wheelchair accessible.
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According to STC’s Les Wills, this service is ahead of what’s running in most other provinces.
Similar buses run in Hamilton, Ont. and Nova Scotia, but most other provinces are still testing wheelchair service.
The national company, Greyhound, has buses equipped with lift chairs to help wheelchair users in larger cities, but relies on bus drivers outside of urban centres.
The biggest problem for Machushek is that the buses are accessible but rarely available. After her first ride on one of them, she has tried to phone ahead and use the service again. But, she said, “if you don’t book two or three weeks ahead sometimes you don’t get it.”
Wills said it’s unfortunate, but the buses are assigned to regular schedules and are switched with other buses when a request comes in. That’s why the company needs 72 hours notice. Otherwise, with each bus costing $450,000, “we couldn’t afford to do that.”
From June 1994 to July 1995, the bus line carried 301 people who had requested the accessible coaches. Wills said the STC was happy with those numbers and expects the same amount of use in the future, if not more.
