Was there anywhere else on the bus that the baby could have gone in the stroller? If not, why should the baby be put off the bus to make room for another passenger?
If the person in a wheelchair has to wait more than an hour for the next bus, then the bus company is not providing an adequate service on that route: it needs to provide more wheelchair spaces on its buses, or more buses.
It really is gorgeous, don’t get me wrong. But I’m very glad you got a better deal on it, too. Just…please tell me you didn’t get the version in white. 'Cause…really?! A white stroller is just not going to survive to be a family heirloom! 
In Denver it’s the law, wheelchair guy present or no.
http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2014/03/28/parents-upset-over-rtd-stroller-ban/7036865/
I really have to ask if there is something about buses in the UK that I am not understanding (I have been on a bus in the UK, but it was many years before I had a baby and it would have never occurred to me to contemplate the logistics of that).
When I take a bus in the US, I sit in a seat, the baby goes on my lap, and the folded up stroller gets jammed up somewhere under my feet or between my knees. On an uncrowded bus, it is not too bad, but even on a crowded bus, when it is uncomfortable because I am holding a squirmy baby and have my ankles hooked around a pokey stroller so it won’t bump into some poor innocent bystander and my purse essentially hanging around my neck, it’s not ideal but it’s hardly the sort of thing that would make me get off of the bus.
That seems extreme. I don’t know exactly how “Americans with disabilities” are defined, but don’t infants have a disability, because they cannot walk? That ruling means that many parents with infants cannot use the bus.
How could you get a stroller onto a bus in the first place? most bus steps are pretty steep. I’ve ridden buses in a lot of cities, including London, and I don’t remember London buses being especially stroller friendly, but it was a while ago.
FWIW, Americans use cars much more than Europeans do. Even middle class people use buses and walk a great deal more than people in about 96% of the US. The US, on the other hand, is a place where even people on the poverty line often manage to own cars. Old, decrepit cars, but nonetheless, they have them. There are very few US cities a person can get around without a car. The very old ones, like New York, DC, Boston and Philadelphia have good public transport. I lived in Manhattan for many years as an adult without owning a car, and my family lived there when I was a child without one, but in Indiana, I couldn’t manage without one, not even in Indianapolis-- actually, especially in Indianapolis, where everything is very spread out. In my college town down south, a person can get around reasonably well on a bicycle, because the city is fairly compact. For several years my husband and I had only one car, and we each had a bike. But just recently, my clutch was out, and my car was in the shop for three days. It was a real headache juggling our schedules, and getting the boychik everywhere he needed to be, with just one car.
The upshot of that is that it might be hard for Americans to appreciate how much people in the UK rely on buses. But then, that makes me wonder why there was only one bus every hour. Cities I have lived in where a car would be redundant, like Manhattan or DC, did not have buses running every hour-- more like every five minutes. Indianapolis, the stupid 16th largest city in the US, with the worst public transportation system of any large city, and most smaller ones, has buses running once an hour-- miss your bus by two minutes, and you get written up at work.
I’m trying to weigh everything here-- not to be too “American” in my view, not too “I have a car; what’s the problem?” I still can’t figure out how a bus full of people couldn’t find a place for a baby and a stroller, so the wheelchair could fit.
I keep coming back to the quote from the woman that she didn’t want to wake the baby. It seems to imply that moving without having to get off the bus entirely WAS a choice, it just might have awakened the baby. It wasn’t an absolute choice between the woman or the man-- it was her convenience over his riding at all.
She should have moved. But where were the other passengers? Here’s where I have to be all-American and ask, what is the UK like on this? In the US, someone would have offered to fold the stroller for her, and someone else would have given her a seat, if the bus was crowded, once it became clear that the guy in the wheelchair wasn’t going to ride otherwise. Not everyone would have jumped right in, but someone would have, and then a couple more people would have followed. Is it really the case that no one would have helped, and no one would have said anything, if the woman had showed any willingness whatsoever to move?
An infant isn’t disabled because not walking is normal for an infant. Just like “incontinence” is normal for an infant, and so health insurance won’t pay for diapers. On the other hand, if a six-year-old with CP needs diapers, insurance will pay for them.
You can get an umbrella stroller, fold it up when the bus arrives, put the baby in your lap, or in a sling, and then unfold the stroller when you get off the bus. It’s a PITA, but you will not have a baby forever. The guy in the wheelchair may be in it for 50 years.
I suspect that either folding strollers are not common there, or this woman was simply insistent that her baby not be awakened. So far, no one from the UK has responded to questions about folding strollers, and I’m about to go over to Amazon.uk, and see if they sell them.
Amazon.uk has plenty of “folding pushchairs,” comparable in both price and appearance to the ones in the US. They also have “umbrella pushchairs,” which are cheaper than the regular ones, but more expensive than the US models. Still, if I were a daily bus rider with a baby, I’d spend the 25 pounds.
You’re phrasing it in a way to make it sound most offensive, but yes. Because she’s not being kicked off. Her stroller is. A stroller is not a necessity. It is a luggage item. If you have too much luggage than can fit on the bus, then you either have to not keep the luggage, or you have to get off.
A wheelchair is not luggage but a necessity, which is why there is a designated place for it, to try and accommodate riders who need one. The space is only available to others if a wheelchair owner isn’t present.
Accommodating a wheelchair is a necessary aspect of allowing the wheelchair owner to use the bus. A person with a stroller has many other options to still ride the bus. There is no inherent right to bring a stroller on a bus–let alone one that can’t be compactly folded up and placed either on or in front of the seat next to you.
Allowing non-handicapped people to use up the accommodations made specifically for handicapped people essentially means there are no accommodations for the handicapped. All it would take is enough people with a stroller, and a wheelchaired person couldn’t use the bus. The stroller user can still use the bus without the stroller.
Do buses in the UK have bike racks on the front like most US buses? Maybe the stroller can be folded and put there.
Stand in the center aisle holding the folded stroller? OK, that would be difficult with the baby. If the bus is that crowded, ask the person next to her to hold the stroller? If it’s that crowded maybe no one is getting on anyway.
But you’re assuming the bus was that crowded, we don’t actually know how crowded it was.
Giles:
This. Why is the woman with the baby less entitled than any other passenger? What if that space was occupied by someone else in a wheelchair, would you think that the current passenger needs to get off for the new passenger?
The linked article suggests that women with babies have the option of walking to their destination pushing the stroller. If that’s your argument, don’t the wheelchair-bound have the ability to wheel themselves to their destination as well?
Most of the replies are from the US, and are US-centric in thinking that the woman should not have put herself in the position of having a stroller that could not be folded and put away of a bus, and some other way to secure the baby-- like holding it on her lap. In other words, she should not have needed that space, and should have been able to vacate it without getting off the bus. She is less entitled, because the spot is for wheelchairs.
Apparently that is not the case in the UK, though, and the Americans are having trouble wrapping our brains around it.
However the woman did not say “I have no other place for the stroller”; she said “I don’t want to wake the baby.” That sounds selfish and entitled.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m glad I never faced this dilemma when my child was still an infant (I travelled on trains and parked her stroller in the wheelchair space, but would have moved to the foyer next to the doors if a wheelchair user had got on) but yeah, it’s not that easy - you’ve got a wriggly baby, who’s possibly not able to sit up and hold their own head up yet. What do you do with him/her while you’re folding the buggy? You can’t leave them unsecured on a bus seat without a car-seat carrier, especially not if the bus is moving. Do you ask a stranger to hold them, and your bags, and the shopping you’ve just been to buy that’s now stashed in the basket under the buggy (preventing it from folding) and trust that they don’t drop your baby or nick your stuff?
I voted that the mum should have moved to let the wheelchair user on, in the poll, for what its worth. And in real life, I did this by never getting the bus to risk taking Ambivalid’s spot, because of problems like this.
And I like trains.
In answer to another question, yes, umbrella style pushchairs are common here in the UK, but are quite flimsy (and the cheap ones I’ve met have been known to start folding without warning while the kids still in them). If a mum was going for a big day out, particularly into town to do some shopping, she might have something sturdier like this - http://www.mumsnet.com/reviews/pushchairs/travel-systems/13753-icandy-cherry This kind do fold, but you have to separate them into two pieces, first remove the seat, then fold the chassis with the wheels. Not really easy to do in a crowded bus, and impossible with a wriggling infant tucked under one arm.
In the US these days, a lot of strollers are marketed as “one hand folding” meaning that you can activate the collapsing mechanism with just one hand. Some are flimsy umbrellas, but plenty are more similar to the sturdier one in your second link.
When I’m getting on the bus, yes, I held the baby in one arm (and before she could hold her own head, it was like a football carry), and had to manage the stroller and bags and anything else with the other hand. Sometimes people offered to help grab a bag or lift up the stroller, which was nice, and often it was other moms who probably had more sympathy having been in the same position. But if even without help, it’s perfectly doable, I did it all the time. It’s also the kind of thing where it seems daunting the first time or two, but then you learn the best place to grab your stroller, and the most effective way of hooking your bag on the handle so it won’t fall off when the stroller is folded up, and then it’s just part of your routine that you can do without thinking about it.
However, I doubt one could do it without waking a sleeping baby (although maybe, some kids sleep through anything), which, as RivkahChaya pointed out, is the part of the story that seems the most snotty.
I rode mass transit for 25 years.
I’ve assisted other passengers from the kindness of my heart.
Speaking as a potential assistant for such a situation, I’d prefer mom (or dad) hold the kid but I’d be happy to hold bags or fold a stroller for the parent(s). If the bus is crowded it’s unlikely anyone is going to nick your stuff simply because it’s impossible to get off the bus quickly and other passengers tend to react extremely negatively to such thievery.
Of course, this was in Chicago, an American city where total strangers sitting next to each other will strike up a conversation and fellow passengers generally try to accommodate the needs of others if for no other reason than it gets the bus/train moving again quickly and makes things more pleasant overall. Whether or not that level of helpfulness/extroversion/whatever will apply in other parts of the world is not guaranteed. Or even other parts of the US.