Boston is one of those cities where you really don't need a car at all. It's convenient to have one at times, yes, but public transportation can get you just about anywhere without the hassles of parking, insurance, traffic, and breakdowns. And for all the problems the MBTA has with accessibility, it is at least possible to use large parts of the system in a wheelchair, assuming you're willing to deal with delays and the occasional backtracking. (Not to minimize the problems the T has; just that it's not completely inaccessible like - Chicago's El.)

The buses in particular are pretty good - the drivers tend to be pissy about dealing with wheelchair users, but they generally don't drive off when they see me. I think a lot of the problems could be dealt with through better training - simple things like, "ask the customers sitting in the wheelchair spot to move while you're extending the ramp" and "don't insist that all the able-bodied people get on before the ramp goes out if that means the bus will be full - for all you know, s/he could have been there first". It'd also be nice if they knew how to strap down a chair without staring with confuzzlement at their equipment for several minutes. But at least I can generally get where I'm going, even if I have to wait a bit.

Today's experience, though, was humiliating. Like most accessible buses, the main door has a ramp. It could be faster, but it's a decent setup, and it has the advantage of being easily deployable even when the motor breaks down. Problem is, when a bus comes into the station, sometimes the platform is on the left, and the left side doesn't have an integrated ramp. The MBTA solves this problem by using what is essentially a two-piece suitcase ramp. The ramp is kept in a locked closet near the platform; when the bus pulls up, you make contact with the driver, they pull out their big Ring 'o Keys, deploy the ramp, and lock the ramp back up once you're on board. In theory, anyway.

Today, my driver had lost her key to the closet. I'm not sure how that happened - when would you ever remove a key from your work keychain? - but it didn't stop there. She spent several minutes looking through her keys before she figured out that this had happened. Once she did, she called for an inspector, and we waited. The guy came faster than inspectors usually do - a perk of being at a major station, I suppose - but it took the two of them much longer to put the ramp together than it should have. Seriously - the pegs go in the holes, the beveled edge goes at the bottom, and the lips go on opposite sites. Yeesh. I know you don't want the people I'm traveling with to help - liability, plus it makes you look incompetent - but if you're gonna take that long to figure out the obvious, they're gonna want to jump in. Plus, engineers.

I don't know how long it took to get on the bus. Probably not more than ten or fifteen minutes. But that was about the most embarrassing ten or fifteen minutes I've ever experienced. By the time things started moving, it was obvious to the other passengers that something was wrong. And with a group of seven people - two T employees, one wheelchair user - hovering around the open door to the bus, it wasn't hard to figure out what the holdup was. By the time I got aboard, it felt as if every eye on that bus was on me. Me and my chair. Me and my ramp. Me and my 'special needs'. The ride to our destination was no less awkward. (Although I did have the amusing bonus of witnessing a friend who rarely swears mutter: "fuckers".)

It's entirely possible that everyone on the bus understood that this was not my fault, but a failure on the part of the MBTA. Unfortunately, that's probably wishful thinking. Eighteen months ago, The Stranger - a generally progressive, pro-civil-rights publication from San Francisco Seattle - published an article called Should the Handicapped Be Banned From Expess Busses?, asking:

Is it fair for one or two handicapped individuals’ right to public accommodation to trump the right of dozens or hundreds of others to have reliable transit service that gets them to work on time? Is it fair for two people in wheelchairs to make everyone else on the “express” bus late?

Note that the author assumes the fault is that of "two people in wheelchairs" and their "right to public accommodation", and not the training and equipment issues that her story describes. From the comments, we have such gems as "no need to drag everyone else down as well", and "the ADA doesn't relieve disabled folks of the burden of being considerate of how accommodating their needs may impact others".

You know why so many able-bodied people don't like the ADA? Why our people are seen as second-class citizens, costing extra money and inconveniencing "Real People"? It's not our actions. It's the failure of the MBTA to train their employees properly. It's the failure of university facilities departments to plan ahead rather than constantly retrofitting. It's the failure of restaurants to use a table layout that is actually navigable by someone whose footprint is more than a foot wide.

My people are not at fault here; yours are.