I thought the bus has been stinkier lately. Must be all the assholes riding it.

[sabotabby]

Asshole of the Week: Elsa La Rosa. La Rosa is the shitspittle who complained about strollers on the TTC, a complaint they apparently took seriously enough that all local media is yammering today about whether strollers should be banned or limited on transit or parents charged extra for bringing them on.

I suppose this fine upstanding citizen is incapable of picturing the pitiful sight of a mother and her young children, waiting for an hour in the windswept, -20°C wastelands of Scarborough for the next bus to arrive because, well, there were already two strollers aboard the last one so tough luck, lady. La Rosa might be incapable of empathy, but I'm not. I don't care much for SUV strollers either, but the only thing more irritating than having a stroller appear on public transit is being the unfortunate sod in the position to have to bring a stroller on public transit. Generally speaking, if you're hauling one of those fuckers on a bus, you have zero other options.

There is, of course, a strong element of sexism at work—it is still primarily women who are responsible for childcare, and thus it's women that La Rosa would apparently like to see restricted from the public spaces that they pay taxes to maintain. There's an even stronger element of classism. Rich moms don't take the TTC. Any fee or restriction would disproportionately affect working class and impoverished parents and children.

Also, La Rosa is just a selfish douche. She also wants to lower the age for a senior’s Metropass, presumably because she's 61 and you need to be 65 to get the discount.

Lest you think that the Asshole of the Week designation is awarded lightly, our winner was up against some very strong competition. But La Rosa wins it on sheer pettiness.

I should also mention that it's only Tuesday.

(Oh, and that the solution is actually wider buses and streetcars, and more vehicles in service at any given time. But there isn't the political will.)

Comments

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Fucking fuck. I took a double stroller with two kids on the Christie bus once (I've done it twice, but the second time was super hard) and it barely fit, and it was a huge pain. The driver was nice enough, the other passengers were nice enough, the kids fortunately were sleeping and/or quiet, but I did get some dirty looks from the seemingly-able-bodied not over fifty folks sitting in the elderly/disabled seating at the front. And I get it, it's a pain. But it was cold and rainy and I couldn't get that thing up the hill in that weather in my physical condition (i.e. quite a bit of pain) at the time. There were enough seats that the folks at the front could have moved back, but they didn't.

Had I been with my housemate L, the driver would have asked those folks to move back so that he could put the seats up to make room for her wheelchair. Strollers are absolutely mobility devices, and yeah, those who are pushing them wish we didn't have to bring them on transit, either.

I have to say, for the most part people are very nice to me when I'm out with kids. And when I'm carrying a baby on my chest, I can be guaranteed a seat and many smiles. Which is more than I can say for older folks who look like they could really use a seat on the subway.

[monster-grrrl.livejournal.com]

I meant to mention my large amount of privilege in terms of having people be nice to me. I'm generally right downtown, white, blonde (pink), blue-eyed, able-bodied looking, and similar to the kids I'm with. I look pretty middle class, too, I think.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, you see a woman of colour with multiple children and no one's giving up a seat for her. Well, except me. And I'm disabled.

But it is completely rage-inducing in a way that I can relate to on account of being disabled. Because you know people like that would like to shunt all of us inconvenient people out of sight if they had their way.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

I have actually seen people give up seats to women of colour with kids, hold doors open for them, help them get strollers on or off the bus or up and down stairs, etc. - sometimes. But probably not as reliably often, and I think it might depend on the area. In most of the neighbourhoods I've lived in over the past decade or two, people of colour tend to be the majority or pretty close to it, so the crowd of other passengers on the bus/streetcar is not likely to be anywhere near all white.

And disproportionately, I think the people who do help tend to be one or more of: a) other people of colour, b) other moms, c) people like you and me who just tend to help people generally. Also, occasionally and strangely, d) elderly people, though maybe that's really a subset of c. "Strangely" only in that, as with you being disabled, elderly people are more likely to need the seat, or have a hard time trying to lift a stroller, but I think they were also raised in an era when people tended to be more polite and considerate of others. Not that that always lasts -- Elsa LaRosa is certainly a prime counter-example -- but apparently sometimes it does.

[sabotabby]

Well, we were raised right. :)

I'm lucky in that I really only have to do rush hour once a week or so. My hours are such that I'm going against traffic and there are plenty of seats. When it's crowded, transit is a miserable experience full of miserable people who, instead of having empathy for each other, make life unpleasant for everyone around them.