CTA To Crack Down On Strollers On Buses

By Chuck Sudo in News on Oct 12, 2012 6:20PM

Photo credit: Chicagoist/Chuck Sudo

Who among us hasn’t boarded a bus to find the seating reserved for seniors and people with disabilities instead filled by a stroller holding a baby, babies, or a baby and a combination of other items including but not limited to: groceries, clothing, sporting goods, portable seating, trash, and miscellaneous detritus? And this happens while the people the seating is reserved for stand in a crowded bus?

CTA President Forrest Claypool announced Thursday the transit agency will launch an initiative to remind passengers with strollers in tow that priority seating is intended for senior citizens and people with disabilities. Claypool said he’s heard numerous complaints about strollers clogging the priority seating areas of buses from drivers and feels a nice reminder or three would be sufficient. The campaign will include handouts and additional signage.

CTA allows open strollers on buses and trains, but asks they be folded and the baby held when a bus becomes crowded and warns a driver may ask riders with strollers to wait for a less-crowded bus or train. That comes as a cold comfort to riders like Verrone Perry, who spoke out about the rising occurrences of open strollers on buses at Thursday’s CTA Board meeting.

“The baby strollers need to stop,” Perry said. “While they’re clearing the aisle with the baby stroller, there are people standing up, two to four people standing, that have worked hard all day and that want to sit down. “The drivers need to say something. Buses should not move until the baby strollers are taken down and the baby is taken out,”

Alexandra Higgins, who writes a blog called The Mommy Dialogues, wrote it isn’t always that simple.

If I know I am going on a busy bus line or cutting it close to rush hour, I use our Baby Cargo, stuff a carrier in the basket and pray that we don’t have to fold our stroller and strap the baby on, but it has happened at least a dozen times. I try to be really considerate of other passengers by taking up one seat section (rather than two) when I park my stroller on the bus and rarely sit, even if there is an empty seat.

--snip—

Sure moms with babies take up a bit more room than two adult passengers, but the difference is a two-seat section of space (one for mom, one for baby) when using a stroller. I’d love for the CTA to actually measure the footprint of a mom using a stroller versus a mom caring her tot, diaper bag, and any other items she has with her. Now compare those numbers to the space two passengers take up when using the bus or how much space a mom carrying her baby with a diaper bag and a collapsed stroller takes up. Ithink think know that the footprint would not be much bigger, and asking mom to fold up her stroller and carry everything that was in her stroller and her baby will actually take up more space.

Kevin “CTA Tattler” O’Neil wrote in April the stroller issue is “one of the most divisive issues (he’s) ever encountered” is strollers on buses.