- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,572
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 228
At 12, Lyndsey Westgarth-Smith is an OC Transpo veteran who regularly travels the bus alone using her own Presto card.
She wasn’t expecting to be denied a ride by a bus driver who didn’t believe she was a child.
It happened Saturday morning when Lyndsey was taking the bus, as she does regularly, to her karate class on Merivale Road. She texted her mother, Julia Smith, to say she hadn’t been allowed on the bus.
“First the driver told her it was only for children ages six to 11,” said Smith. “She showed him the rules on the side of the bus that says it’s for ages six to 12. Then he asked her to provide proof she was 12 years old. She told him she had a Presto pass that was geared to (her) birthdate and said, ‘I’m a child so I don’t carry ID.’ Then he refused to drive her and told her to get off his bus.”
Lyndsey went home and got bus tickets from her mother’s roommate, but she was able to use her Presto car unchallenged on the next bus. Smith says she and Lyndsey’s father encourage her to take the bus on her own to foster independence and she’s upset by what happened. Lyndsey is tall for her age, and sometimes wears makeup, but looking older shouldn’t have got her put off the bus, Smith said.
“Clearly some of your drivers need some education on how to talk to kids and deal properly with these situations,” she wrote in a complaint to OC Transpo and copied to the Citizen. “What is the point of having a Presto pass that I had to go to an OC Transpo location to prove her age and have it linked to her birthdate if bus drivers are not going to honour it?! … (K) icking a child off the bus in the winter because you are skeptical of her age is completely lacking in common sense and customer service.”
Lyndsey’s father called his councillor, Keith Egli — who happens to be chairman of the city’s Transportation Committee — and was assured the matter would be dealt with.
“It doesn’t sound like the kind of service we want to provide,” Egli told the Citizen. “We want to find out exactly what happened and how we can make that sort of thing work better. I image at 12 years of age you probably don’t have a lot of picture ID. … You wouldn’t even have student ID because you’re not in high school.
Children under six ride the bus for free; kids aged six to 12 pay $1.50 per ride. OC Transpo does offer a proof-of-age ID card for children, but there there’s no mention of it on the OC Transpo website. Nevertheless, Lyndsey and her father planned to pick one up on Tuesday so she would have no more trouble between now and her 13th birthday next summer.
Meanwhile, Egli is promising to follow up with OC Transpo.
“When the complaint came in it concerned me,” he said. “We don’t want to see children being put off the bus.”
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
She wasn’t expecting to be denied a ride by a bus driver who didn’t believe she was a child.
It happened Saturday morning when Lyndsey was taking the bus, as she does regularly, to her karate class on Merivale Road. She texted her mother, Julia Smith, to say she hadn’t been allowed on the bus.
“First the driver told her it was only for children ages six to 11,” said Smith. “She showed him the rules on the side of the bus that says it’s for ages six to 12. Then he asked her to provide proof she was 12 years old. She told him she had a Presto pass that was geared to (her) birthdate and said, ‘I’m a child so I don’t carry ID.’ Then he refused to drive her and told her to get off his bus.”
Lyndsey went home and got bus tickets from her mother’s roommate, but she was able to use her Presto car unchallenged on the next bus. Smith says she and Lyndsey’s father encourage her to take the bus on her own to foster independence and she’s upset by what happened. Lyndsey is tall for her age, and sometimes wears makeup, but looking older shouldn’t have got her put off the bus, Smith said.
“Clearly some of your drivers need some education on how to talk to kids and deal properly with these situations,” she wrote in a complaint to OC Transpo and copied to the Citizen. “What is the point of having a Presto pass that I had to go to an OC Transpo location to prove her age and have it linked to her birthdate if bus drivers are not going to honour it?! … (K) icking a child off the bus in the winter because you are skeptical of her age is completely lacking in common sense and customer service.”
Lyndsey’s father called his councillor, Keith Egli — who happens to be chairman of the city’s Transportation Committee — and was assured the matter would be dealt with.
“It doesn’t sound like the kind of service we want to provide,” Egli told the Citizen. “We want to find out exactly what happened and how we can make that sort of thing work better. I image at 12 years of age you probably don’t have a lot of picture ID. … You wouldn’t even have student ID because you’re not in high school.
Children under six ride the bus for free; kids aged six to 12 pay $1.50 per ride. OC Transpo does offer a proof-of-age ID card for children, but there there’s no mention of it on the OC Transpo website. Nevertheless, Lyndsey and her father planned to pick one up on Tuesday so she would have no more trouble between now and her 13th birthday next summer.
Meanwhile, Egli is promising to follow up with OC Transpo.
“When the complaint came in it concerned me,” he said. “We don’t want to see children being put off the bus.”
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
