Before I stopped working, I was a proficient airline traveler, even in my wheelchair. My adventures are usually more modest today. Now I’m dabbling in, gulp, city buses.

For some first-hand accounts of my business-related wheelchair travels, click here and here.

There is a bus system transportation hub only two blocks from our house. Although we moved to this neighborhood over a year ago, we never bothered to sample the public bus system until recently. The city website indicated that all buses are wheelchair accessible. I didn’t believe it, so Kim accompanied me on my first trip from our neighborhood to the Maine Mall.

We waited at our neighborhood’s outdoor transportation hub on a hot, humid August day. The bus was scheduled to arrive at 10:40 am. It arrived at 10:50 – not bad. I dreaded what sort of convoluted, humiliating boarding procedure I might be subjected to. The most horrifying public transportation experience I ever had was on the “green line” subway in Boston a few years ago. Kim and I had decided to attend a Red Sox game with our daughter Amy, who was enrolled at Bentley College just outside of Boston. The city’s public transportation website indicated that the green line was a wheelchair accessible train system. When we got to the boarding area we noticed that there were about four steps to get up onto the trains. As we pondered this obstacle, an attendant came along with an archaic device in tow.

I was instructed to drive up onto this portable lift. When I did, the attendant began turning a huge manual crank, leaning hard into the task, not unlike how a medieval tyrant would have turned the wheel of “the rack” in a dungeon, in order to torture a witch or a heathen. But my limbs were not stretched. Instead, every time he turned the ratcheted wheel I rose a little higher, until eventually I was at the level of the train, no worse for the wear (physically).

By now all the busy people on the train had been delayed, and it was obvious that I was the problem. As I attempted to proceed from the lift onto the train, everyone had to squeeze out of my way. I learned that the green line trains are always filled beyond capacity before and after Red Sox games. Wonderful. If there was a designated wheelchair spot on the train, with safety equipment such as tiedowns, I was never going to find it in this sea of humanity. I didn’t even try.

We had to reverse the process as we got off the train near Fenway Park. I vowed that I was never going to subject myself to using the green line again, and I haven’t. On the way back from Fenway Park we walked over to Northeastern University and boarded the orange line instead, which is a legitimately accessible train (as is the red line).

But my experience with the South Portland public bus system was nothing like that. A ramp automatically extended from the bus, and I drove straight on. There were two spaces reserved for wheelchairs, with a seatbelt system and four wheelchair tiedowns. Kim had me secured in no time. I didn’t feel conspicuous, and I didn’t throw the bus off schedule.

And we were thrilled to find out that the bus was comfortably air-conditioned.

This is probably a good time to make a confession. “Hello, my name is Mitch, and I’m a bit of a snob.”

Looking around the city bus, I didn’t feel like I was surrounded by the best and the brightest that South Portland had to offer. There were some, frankly, scary-looking characters on the bus. But if I’m going to live in the city, where lots of scary-looking characters live, and if I’m going to ride the bus, which is how lots of the scary-looking characters move about, then I better get used to it.

The bus took a circuitous route to the mall and made lots of stops, which accounted for dragging out what would normally be a 10 minute trip to 30 minutes. We arrived at the mall, debarked from the bus without incident, and enjoyed an hour or so of shopping. The next bus arrived on schedule at the mall. The ride back to our neighborhood was about 30 minutes once again. Success!

But would I dare try the bus system without Kim?

Ever since the new lineup of Amazon Kindle tablets and e-readers came out a few weeks ago, I’d been toying with the idea of purchasing one. The aforementioned Maine Mall has a Best Buy that was well-stocked with these devices. Kim had agreed to take me to the mall after work last Tuesday to pick up my newest toy. But on Tuesday morning I began to ask myself why this wouldn’t be a perfect opportunity to try going solo on the bus system.

I went to the transportation hub and waited for the 10:40 bus. I positioned myself near the doors as they opened. The bus driver indicated to me, however, that both of the wheelchair tiedowns locations were already occupied by other wheelchair users. This was not a problem that I had anticipated. I turned around and went home.

By about 12:30 I had shaken off the earlier disappointment, and returned to the hub to await the 12:40 bus. This time there were two open wheelchair spots, and I boarded without incident. The bus driver secured me, and we were on our way.

I went to Best Buy, picked up my new Kindle Fire HD, and got back to the pickup area just in time to catch the next bus home. When Kim walked through the door after work she saw the Kindle packaging strewn about the kitchen table and asked who had driven me to the mall.

She made a couple of guesses, and I just kept shaking my head, with a smile. Finally I let her off the hook. “Nobody drove me. I took the bus.”

“Of course! I completely forgot about that,” she confessed.

Before we discovered the bus system I was already somewhat mobile, given that I have a power wheelchair and lots of places to visit nearby. It was not uncommon for Kim to return from work and find nobody at home. She could always rest assured, however, that I must be somewhere nearby. But now when she comes home and doesn’t find me, I could be anywhere in the Greater Portland area, and I like that!

Not so long ago, even during my first year as a wheelchair user, I was a proficient traveler. I could get from one part of the country to any other part of the country, quickly, comfortably, and economically. An ice storm has shut down O’Hare? No problem. I’ll reroute through Atlanta. In fact, I accumulated so many frequent flyer miles that I was routinely upgraded to first class. “Complimentary beverage, Mr. Sturgeon?”

For some first-hand accounts of my solo wheelchair travel adventures, click here and here.

Contrast this with my current level of mobility and independence, where I can’t so much as leave the neighborhood without asking someone for a favor. I am by no means homebound, yet I’d like to be able to move about of my own volition.

Enter…public transportation.

One option in greater Portland, Maine is the Regional Transportation Program, or RTP, which is a subsidized agency that provides low cost rides to folks with various types of disabilities. A couple of weeks ago I had a dentist appointment and made use of this service for the first time.

My appointment was for 11:00, and I let RTP know I would need a return ride at about noon. The driver showed up at my house promptly at 10:00. She was pleasant enough, but certainly not talkative. My wheelchair was carefully strapped down to the floor of the van, and I was secured to my wheelchair with a seatbelt. She dropped me off at my dentist at about 10:35. No problem though. I had my Kindle with me.

As expected, I was out of the appointment at about noon. I sat in the waiting room, with a watchful eye on the parking lot. Nobody showed up. I didn’t know how long I should wait before checking in with the dispatcher, so I called him at 12:15 just to make sure that I had not been forgotten. He indicated that someone was on their way.

12:30 came and went. I waited graciously, but with some anxiety.

At 12:45, an RTP vehicle finally pulled into the parking lot. This driver was not pleasant, not apologetic, and not talkative- all business. As we began the drive toward my house there was no friendly chit chat. There was only silence. Perhaps when I become a more seasoned RTP rider, I’ll enjoy and appreciate these moments of solitude. But I wanted to engage this guy in conversation, if for no other reason than to answer some of my basic questions about how this whole system worked. I am an engineer after all. I need to know how things work.

Then, out of nowhere, a car hurled itself in front of us from a side street. I was well strapped in, so even though my driver stepped on the brakes firmly, I didn’t get tossed around at all. We sat there while the elderly lady in front of us tried to remember how to drive. Eventually she pulled away, nearly clipping another vehicle in the process.

I saw an opportunity, and I went for it. “I guess that lady shouldn’t be driving,” I observed out loud.

That opened the conversational floodgates. For the remainder of the ride home the driver regaled me with all sorts of stories of idiot drivers and all the close calls he had endured. Since he was on a roll, he complained about two or three other injustices in his life too. I was able to squeeze in a couple of basic questions about how the RTP and public bus systems worked, and my driver gave me thorough, if overly cynical, responses.

Last week I made my second excursion with RTP. I had a 10:00 doctor’s appointment. My understanding was that they typically pick you up about an hour before an appointment, so I was gearing up for a 9:00 ish arrival of my driver. At 8:30 my phone rang and it was my “5 minute notice” that my driver would soon be arriving. I was surprised and taken aback. Not knowing what else to say I only countered with a feeble, “This is for a 10:00 appointment, right?”

The dispatcher shuffled some papers, and replied, “Yes,” and that was the end of my halfhearted protest.

Sure enough, the driver arrived at about 8:35. He strapped my chair to the floor and me to my chair, and then headed out. He informed me that I was going to ride along with him while he did one other pickup and drop off. Okay. That explained the early arrival.

We traveled all the way across town and picked up a little boy from his mom and delivered him to some sort of daycare. I ended up arriving at my appointment 15 minutes early, which is just about what I like to do anyway. My appointment was a quick one, and I was out by 10:15. The driver was scheduled to pick me up at 10:30, and showed up at 10:25. I was home by 10:40.

So far, I must admit that I am less than enamored with my public transportation experience. But really, what should I have expected? The drivers of these handicapped accessible vehicles are not volunteers teeming with boundless compassion for the passengers. They are more like taxi drivers or bus drivers. This is how they make a living. The only difference is that they are servicing disabled passengers rather than the general public.

I guess I had this fantasy in my head that an agency which deals specifically with disabled people would be staffed by drivers who were more like, well, grandmothers. They would be friendly, empathetic, talkative, and always on time. They would bring cookies and milk, and gently remind me to sit up straight and wash behind my ears.

So the RTP is not shaping up quite like I had imagined, but I’m not complaining. I’m just saying.