Priority Seating

 
As you’ve read and heard me bitching and moaning its been hard for me coming back to Canada from the United State, the US is really the world leader in disability awareness. I’ve noticed that my experience personally varies significantly geographically with my more positive experiences happening in Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver and my worst experiences happening in Calgary.
Calgary Transit used to have a program called “Priority Seating” where the elderly, mothers, disabled people etc., were given priority to seating on a bus or the light rail transit trains. There are still accommodations for those in a wheel chair on the bus and train but the rest of us have been forgotten. No longer is there a notion of “Priority Seating”. I can hear it, you’re a big healthy guy. Yes, I am but being blind means that there are issues, balance being one of them. Its already happened a few times me sloshing around a bus or a train hanging on for dear life. Now any of us are at the whim of those on the bus or train to out of the goodness of their own heart offer up a seat to you, or a mother, or elderly person. Its inevitable that being a big guy one day probably not that far off I will loose my balance and take out a number of other commuters. I’ll let you know how many I get.
Unscientifically, it’s my observation, and what do I know I can’t see anyway, that it is young male Canadians who refuse to offer a seat to anyone. Ah the ignorance of youth, woman persons of ethnicity will offer their seats, but these young white Canadians won’t. Actually I have to be fair to you the youth, I’ve never seen a white Canadian male of any age offer his seat to anyone.