Imagine waiting in the rain for a bus to pick you up, only for it to pass you by.

And then another full bus zips by and then another, but that one is out of service. Finally after an hour of waiting, you are let onto a bus.

Now imagine this happening, but you’re in a wheelchair.

This is one man’s claim, captured on video, by CityNews viewer Skye Marchment. The 20-year-old TTC passenger says she pulled out her phone when the incident began around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, in part because she wanted answers as to why the man in a wheelchair was holding up her bus.

Marchment says she was waiting for the No. 54 bus on Lawrence Avenue one stop west of Don Mills and that two packed buses and one out of service bus passed her before she finally boarded. One stop later the disgruntled man got on board.

She says the man in the wheelchair told the other passengers on the bus he wanted answers as to why he had to wait over an hour in the rain for a bus to let him on, despite being in a wheelchair. He said the TTC should have given him priority boarding and let him on the bus first but this didn’t happen.

“Right away he said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m upset and if I don’t stand up for my principles nobody will do it for me,'” says Marchment. “This is courageous to me as much as it is kind of careless in some ways. It took a lot of guts to do what he did, especially someone with a disability.”

“If you can stand, then you can stand in the back and wait. If you can have six strollers on one bus, why can’t you have one disabled person on one bus?” Marchment adds. “I hope that it just reminds people, as a commuter, we should not have to be asked by a TTC employee to get off those blue seats. It’s common courtesy. We can do better”

CityNews reached out to the TTC for an explanation about what might have led to this passenger outburst and if in fact the passenger in the wheelchair was declined service or if others boarded a packed bus leaving him unable to board, as it’s alleged.

All they could tell us by our deadline is that a fare inspector did arrive on scene and took the gentleman’s statement. He was then instructed to go online to also fill out a formal report.

David Lepofsky, chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance says while he can’t speak to this incident, scenarios like this speak to the general realities people with disabilities face each and every day on transit.

“I could tell you that generally people with disabilities riding public transit in Toronto and Ontario are like second class citizens,” says Lepofsky. “The government passed legislation back in 2005 requiring that our society, including public transit, become fully accessible by 2025. We are not on schedule for that role.”

Lepofsky also adds that while transit authorities are supposed to provide accessible environments, there may be no way to enforce it.