C-Tran Seathogs

After the commuter column in the Oregonian the other day a discussion ensued about seathog experiences on C-Tran buses. It was funny that the subject came up in the paper this week because I had been talking to a friend about some of the seathogs I saw over the Holidays. Make no mistake though, seathogs are an issue year round on buses all over America.

The express buses are 11 months out of the year 97.5% commuters 99% of the time. During the Holidays though for as long as I can remember the demographic changes slightly. Starting around Thanksgiving and through the days before Christmas you start getting the occasional people who don't want to drive into downtown Portland for the tree lighting or to shop at Macy's or other downtown Portland stores. A lot of these people are "older", some aren't so old but have kids and such with them. Frankly if you live in Clark County and want to go into downtown Portland during the week, an express bus is a GREAT way to go. BUT the seathogs can be quite rude and turn what should have been a fun experience into a pain.

I've seen these commuter seat hogs refuse to surrender seats to elderly folks bogged down with packages. Even when they are sitting in the seats that are clearly marked reserved for elderly or disabled passengers. I've seen them refuse to move their bags of crap that they haul back and forth with them. There's a sub-issue for another day-why do some folks feel a need to take what amounts to a big old suitcase back and forth to work with them every single day? It takes up tons of space on crowded buses and I'd wager that less than 50% of the time these folks are carrying anything for actual work, it's personal stuff.

You get a lot of older veterans who take C-Tran year round to downtown Portland to head up to the VA hospital. The 105 runs between Salmon Creek, downtown Vancouver and downtown Portland all day 5 days a week and is a nice alternative to driving to Marquam Hill. Again you will see commuters who will refuse to surrender a seat to an elderly or disabled person. I've spoken up at times and I've had them look at me like I was nuts for bringing it up and sadly they still refuse to move.

I have a co-worker who is in her late 50's/early 60's., who has a physical disability that requires her to get around with the aid of a cane. She used to be a regular C-Tran rider for over 10 years but got fed up. A couple of years ago one morning she boarded the 177 at Evergreen Transit Center for her trip to work. There was a perfectly healthy lady on the bus taking up all 3 of the elderly/disabled seats. My co-worker asked her to move her bag so that she could sit in 1 of the 3 seats. The lady told her that no she wouldn't move her bag and told my co-worker that there were plenty of empty seats on the bus and that my co-worker could take 1 of those seats. My co-worker got upset and ended up picking the woman's bag up and tossing it into the floor of the bus. The seathog ended up calling C-Tran and filing a formal complaint against my disabled co-worker. In spite of the coach operator defending my co-worker along with numerous passengers phoning C-Tran defending my co-worker, she the disabled person who requested the disabled seating ended up getting excluded for tossing the bag on the floor!

It's my understanding from the story in the Oregonian that while Tri Met doesn't enforce seathog rules when it comes to elderly/disabled seating that at least a rule actually does exist. If Tri Met wanted to push it the rule is enough of an actual law that they can write a ticket if you refuse to move.

I can only assume by the fact that my co-worker was the one who got excluded and by the fact that coach operators most of the time don't speak up that C-Tran does not have any sort of formal rule about surrendering seats to elderly/disabled. On C-Tran it appears to only be a "suggestion".

Personally I'd like to see Tri Met start writing tickets for this when there's a fare inspector or someone else with ticket writing authority on a Max and frankly I'd like to see C-Tran make this an actual rule rather than suggestion and see the coach operators start speaking up more often.