Mondays with Mike: Reasonable accommodation

A week ago this past Saturday, Beth and I took the Amtrak to Milwaukee, snagged a Zipcar, and visited Gus at his group home in Watertown, Wisconsin. We stayed the night, and I took an earlier train train back than Beth did, as I had to fly out for a business trip.

Amtrak reserves a row at one end of most cars for people with didsabilities. There’s extra room to store a wheelchair, or, in our case, to let Whitney rest comfortable. As I boarded, I passed this row—noting that two able bodied men, one on either side of the aisle—were occupying the seats.

At first, I thought, “no harm, no foul,” and I didn’t say anything. But as I ruminated, I began to get aggravated. Because I travel with Beth so much, and because I used to push Gus in his wheelchair (a friend of mine joked once that if you look up pre-boarding in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Mike and his family), I’ve had a lot of experience in these matters.

I’m not a militant. In fact, I frequently take exception with some disability activism. I like to believe that reasonable accommodation must in some instances cut both ways.

But, here’s the deal. If I board that train with Beth we are left to either walk to another car, which we sometimes do, or, ask them to vacate the seat.

Is asking them to leave a big deal? It kind of is. There’s hubbub and we block the aisle for a bit. Before we get to our seats Beth (or any other person with a disability) has already had to negotiate a lotof obstacles. They don’t need another one that can be avoided by people simply observing signs. Amtrak is very good about these things, and the signs on these rows say, simply, “Reserved for passengers with disabilities.” (The train was nowhere near full, by the way.)

Everybody’s different, and I don’t mean to speak for all people with disabilities or their companions.

It’s just that I see up close what Beth deals with every day; we have friends in wheelchairs; I wheeled Gus through countless tight spots. It’s hard. And when I see anyone making it any harder than it needs to be, like humans with ill-behaved fake service dogs, or completely able-bodied people using automatic doors that are clearly labeled as accessible features (guaranteeing those doors will get more use than designed for and be out of service more often), well, I teeter between sadness and anger.

As for those two guys on the train? At one point the conductor came through and admonished them: You can sit there for now but if someone in a walker or a chair comes in, you’ll have to move.

They sheepishly found new seats.