‘Please offer me a seat.’ TTC offers buttons to help passengers who need to sit

Sometimes, commuters sitting on a crowded bus or train just aren’t aware.

Thestar.com
May 8, 2018
Julien Gignac

The TTC is offering a solution for when commuters sitting on a crowded bus or train aren’t aware that another passenger needs a seat.

It’s rolling out big blue buttons with the words, “Please offer me a seat.”

“The objective is to allow people to self-identify their need for a seat,” TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said Tuesday. “People have disabilities that are both visible and invisible. Sometimes people have a temporary need for seat, if they just had surgery.”

The TTC’s advisory committee on accessible transit worked to bring the concept, an import from New York and London, to fruition.

The trouble is that it’s hard sometimes to tell who may need a seat, Green said. Complicating it further is that some passengers who need to sit, don’t want to inconvenience anyone by asking.

Jae Brown, 54, who suffers from epilepsy, said he’s reluctant to ask for a seat because he’s shy.

“There have been times when I’ve been standing when I’ve been wishing that, yeah, I should have a seat,” he said. “I could have an epileptic seizure at any time, and I would need to be (sitting).”

Brown said he picked up a button Tuesday morning at College station. He said he hopes it will make his commutes downtown from Etobicoke easier.

“Hopefully it’s going to help make it a friendlier city,” he said. “I think our city needs some of that right now, people working together to make a great city for everyone.

“I think the buttons will help.”

Some passengers who are sitting comfortably can be testy towards people who grapple with different disabilities, Green said.

“There have been cases where people will either challenge someone’s need for a seat or just not decide to give it up,” Green said. “We think most of our customers are more courteous than that.”

Julie Voyce, 61, says buttons pinned to lapels don’t go far enough because people are too engrossed in their phones to care.

“If this idea was coming up 15 to 20 years ago, it would have worked,” she said. “I like what it means, its intention. I think it’s necessary, but we have a bunch of screen gnomes now.”

Wearing the buttons, which are available from TTC customer service agents and collector booths, is voluntary and not a prerequisite to getting priority seating on public transit.

Green said the TTC is also designing cards for people who may wish to be more discrete about their disabilities.

“Part of our corporate plan is to improve accessibility on the TTC,” Green said. “By 2025, the entire system has to be accessible by law, but we wanted to get ahead of that. This (the buttons) is another way to allow people to have a comfortable ride on conventional transit.”

The Star spoke with several people milling around Union Station on Tuesday night, asking them if they were to sport a button to bring about positive change on public transit, what would it be?

Voyce said she would have a very large one reading, “Give all pregnant women a seat, right now.”

“It’s like, you’re eight months’ pregnant, carrying this huge thing,” she said. “How are your legs feeling, how is your back feeling, your boobs?”

Sam Hawk, 20, also a regular TTC user, says too often he sees people taking up seats with their bags, which is why he’d sport a button calling for their removal.

“I wish people would be more aware of their surroundings and of other people’s feelings,” he said. “It’s not just about you. You’re sharing the space.”

Lucia Calugaru, 52, said she’d wear a button requesting conversations to be at a more appropriate volume.

“It’s not that often, but it bothers me when people have too loud conversations,” she said. “It’s OK to have a conversation, just control the volume of your voice. You don’t even have to eavesdrop, it’s just so loud.”