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A woman who is partially blind and chronically ill wants OC Transpo to reconsider when it allows passengers to request special stops after she says she was left stranded by the side of a road.

A transit program called Safe Stop allows passengers to ask drivers to stop at safe spot along their route, but closer to their destination, after 7 p.m.

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When Sophie Levesque asked a driver to let her off the bus closer to her Beacon Hill townhouse at around 6:20 p.m. on May 11, she said, the driver refused.

Levesque, 35, was returning from an appointment at The Ottawa Hospital’s Eye Institute. In addition to her central blindness, drops to dilate her pupils had left her with next to no peripheral vision.

She said she approached a driver on Route 24, showed her priority seating and Para Transpo cards and explained the problem with her vision. Levesque also had a white cane, which she uses because of her vision impairment.

She asked to be dropped off at an Esso gas station on the northeast corner of Ogilvie and Montreal roads, about 200 metres before the bus stop and considerably closer to her house.

Levesque said the driver refused, telling her, “I’m not losing my job over this.”

She said she pleaded, telling the driver, “I’m not going to be able to get home from here.”

Not his problem, she says he told her when he dropped her off at the regular stop. Then he drove away, laughing, Levesque alleges.

Left on the side of Ogilvie Road, unable to see a thing and fearful of crossing four lanes of traffic, Levesque called one of her roommates and asked him to meet her at the bus stop and walk her home.

“Quite frankly, it’s humiliating,” Levesque said. “The situation has to change.”