‘DON’T MAKE ME WAIT IN THE COLD’
Bus driver repeatedly refuses service to disabled West Van man
David Consolo depends on West Vancouver’s bus service. With a rare form of muscular dystrophy, his leg muscles and joints are rapidly breaking down.
So nearly every day the 53-year-old makes a point of getting on the bus to travel to his favourite shopping malls and neighbourhoods in North Vancouver.
“The doctor said the most important thing is to keep moving,” Consolo said. “If I sit around I feel like the Tin Man, like I need to get oiled.”
But over the past year Consolo has become stressed, and even fearful, about boarding buses on his regular route. One particular bus driver has repeatedly passed him by at the bus stop and yelled at him to exit the bus, Consolo said, just because he uses a mobility aid.
Consolo said that in 30 years he has never had a problem with any other West Van bus driver. But this particular driver seems bent on enforcing his personal rules on disability aids.
Several times over the past six months Consolo has been refused service by the driver and left waiting for 30 minutes for the next bus, causing him both physical and mental pain.
Consolo said the latest incident happened Friday morning. He said he and his wife started to board the bus, but the driver yelled that he didn’t have room and ordered them off, even though a woman with a grocery buggy had just vacated a seat in the area reserved for seniors and people with disabilities.
“As a human being, I feel everyone should be treated equally, whether you are handicapped or you just competed in the Olympics,” Consolo said. “I was shaking. I felt like crawling under the bus bench. I am not a piece of dirt.”
Consolo said he has witnessed the driver unreasonably ordering a senior woman to sit in a particular seat — while she was already in the appropriate area for those with walking aids — and the driver has repeatedly demanded the same of him.
“I guess he is picking on people with mobility aids,” Consolo said. “He’s the only driver that will refuse to move the bus. He’ll say, ‘I am the bus driver. You do what I say when you are on my bus.’ ”
Consolo’s sister, Tiffany Bromley, said she was with her brother during the past summer when the driver refused them both service. Consolo had his walker, and Bromley was carrying her young son in a carriage. They said there was ample space for travellers with mobility aids.
Bromley said she complained, and the driver’s supervisor said other passengers had complained about the man as well.
The District of West Vancouver’s bus service does contract work for TransLink, but isn’t under the regional transit authority’s jurisdiction.
District spokesman Jeff MacDonald confirmed that an incident involving Consolo occurred last Friday, and two incidents involving the same driver occurred last year. MacDonald said the district is undertaking an investigation, and it isn’t clear if other passengers have complained about the same driver.
“We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience for Mr. Consolo and we are taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” MacDonald told The Province.
In Metro Vancouver there have been previous Human Rights Tribunal cases involving allegations of refusal of service to disabled passengers, but Consolo said he hasn’t considered filing a case.
“I’m not looking to get anyone fired,” he said. “All I’m saying is, ‘Open up your heart.’ I’ll fold up my walker and put it in the luggage rack. Just don’t make me wait in the cold.”