Stephen Miller column: No excuses for poor bus access

Posted by The Journal on Jul 20, 11 09:53 AM in Sport

Stephen Miller writes for the Blyth & Cramlington Extra

It's frustrating being disabled at times: sometimes, you just can't do some things that you'd really love to be able to do.

However, you have to say it's the same for everyone, whether disabled or not.

Being disabled, you possibly notice odd things a little bit more because they stand out from the norm, but you learn to cope with them and find ways around the things you can't do.

I cannot drive, though I'd love to. I was assessed a couple of times when I was younger but I scared myself, and you can imagine what the instructor was like - I struggle to drive an electric wheelchair never mind a car! So I rely quite a bit on public transport, especially buses. In the last few years, there has been a big improvement in wheelchair accessible buses, and most are now "easy access", which mean they have a ramp and can carry one wheelchair. However, I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with Arriva's "easy access" buses which are hardly ever wheelchair accessible.

Recently, I was coming home from Haymarket bus station and it took four buses before I was finally able to get on one to Cramlington.

The excuse is mostly that the ramp isn't working, which is not acceptable as it wouldn't be hard for buses to carry manual ramps. Rant over, for now.

I had a great time in Dublin for the Irish championships, winning in 30.31m. Not a bad distance but would've liked a bit more. Then again, I always want a bit more.

It was a really great trip going on the coach with CP Sport England and Wales, and my busy month continues with a trip to Bedford for the English Parallel Success championships. I've won the Welsh and Irish championships so this would complete the treble.

Once again, I had the privilege of starting the Evening Chronicle Sunshine Run a couple of weeks ago on the Quayside. Around 400 people took part in the 5k run that helps raise money for disabled children in the North East. I was wearing a tux as I was heading straight to Sport Northumbria's annual dinner - check me out!

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1 Comments

The Journal said:

Mark Ellis, Arriva North East Commercial Manager has been in touch with regards to the problems Stephen experienced with bus accessibility:

"Following from the blog written by Stephen in this weeks paper, you'll be pleased to know that we've carried out an audit of all our low floor buses at our Blyth depot. We've found that we have 5 buses that have defective ramps from our fleet of 58 low floor buses which run from Blyth depot. The engineering team at Blyth depot have prioritised the problems with the ramps on these buses and are aiming to fix as many as possible in the next week."

July 25, 2011 11:09 AM