Just Another Irritation

I have to admit there or a hand full of things that has annoyed me as a person with a disability over the decades. In the old days it was people who violated directed parking or disabled parking, then there are those people who always asked if I wanted to race.( in my wheelchair) making race car noises One thing which has irritated me most over the years is the idiot who has their choice 5 to 10 stalls ( in a public bathroom)and invariably picks the one wheelchair accessible stall in the whole bunch. They sit in the like George Costanza reading newspapers, changing clothes staying in the accessible stalls long as possible. Well yesterday I finally came across my newest able-bodied peeve.

The end of the month and like every end of the month I head over to Salt Lake,downtown UTA station and pick up my new bus pass which allows me to ride the train and the buses for the next month. I was a little miffed I forgot that UTA pulled the customer service station now downtown. It's just an another irritation. There was a note scrawled on a piece of cardboard and posted in the window to empty storefront indicating that UTA customer service is now in the downtown Harmons store, the huge new edifice in downtown Salt Lake, a real market.

One of the best features of the new trains which UTA has purchased, aside from the being low riders and no longer having to rely on the train engineer to lower a ramp to exit her gain access to the train. New trains have of a button exterior and interior to the exit with little wheelchair guy, that you press which will then deploy a mini ramp and then open the doors. It's not cord system the best and I must admit to me some time getting used to but it does allow me to independently use the train. What I've noticed though is that from the time the buttons pushed until the ramp is deployed the doors open could be like 5 to 10,15 seconds long enough to have somebody who does not understand the process think something is wrong with the doors. It's bad enough when you're on the inside the train in the doors and do not immediately open and all that" helper guys" start moving in front of you punching buttons trying the force the door open. Usually I can say or act with enough authority to stop the guy for trying to open the door which is only been open on its own time frame. The real problem is the people on the outside of the door the do not realize the the ramp system is been activated so these guys are smashing the button on the outside door like crazy. This happened today and so messed up the door, that the door opened and closed several times and even though I was inside pushing the “wheelchair guy button” the ramp never deployed the doors never opened and I got whisked away to the next stop. The next stop where I had to exit the train wait around for the next train to take me back to the stopped that would get me to the UTA downtown service outlet that no longer is there. This is what pisses me off now: people who are to much in a hurry access the train to go blindly smashing the buttons when nothing happens the move to another door and asked to enter the train screwing everything up for the person with a disability trying to get off the train. I don't know how much more the second take.