Maria Town had just left Easter services at church, but the real blessing came on the bus ride home when she encountered veteran Metro operator Benita Johnson.

Town, the director of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, has cerebral palsy and sometimes uses a mobility scooter to get around. Johnson was helping Town lock her scooter into place, a procedure that typically takes a couple minutes, when some other passengers began to grumble about how long it was taking.

Johnson, who was on board training another driver, was having none of it.

“I just wanted to let them know everybody can board a Metro bus,” she said later. “They didn’t say much after that.” To Town, she said, “No one’s going to make you feel unworthy when you’re on my bus.”

The experience, which Town said she believes has nothing to do with her city role, left her hopeful for other riders who need assistance.

“I have never seen before an operator really at their core understand this is about dignity and rights,” she said. “It restored my faith in humanity. I know it sounds trite, but it did.”

Johnson shrugged the incident off as merely doing her job, the same role she tries to teach others. All passengers deserve fair treatment, she said, something that starts even before they board the bus.

For disabled riders, however, it doesn’t always work that way, a complaint transit officials hear often.

In March, Jose Avila told Metro board members he repeatedly has been the victim of “disrespect” ranging from hostility from drivers to outright refusal to properly secure his wheelchair.

To ride, wheelchairs must be locked into place on buses with a four-point safety system that buckles the chair in place and secures the rider, based on requirements from the Federal Transit Administration. Often, many disabled riders say, bus operators only buckle two of the belts or tell passengers in wheelchairs to lock their wheels for safety.

Avila said often he has been told that locking all the points is too cumbersome, including one recent interaction along the Route 85 bus.

“She looks at me and says ‘These people have to get to work on time,’” Avila told board members, noting he also was on his way to work.

Following Avila’s complaint, Metro acknowledged that not buckling riders in place is unacceptable.

“That operator has been fired. I will be very candid about it,” Metro CEO Tom Lambert said.

Metro Chairwoman Carrin Patman called the incident “atypical,” which drew disagreement from Lex Frieden, a Metro board member and disability rights advocate.

“I do not think that is necessarily a unique situation,” Frieden said after Avila’s account.

Frieden, who uses a motorized wheelchair, said proper fastening of passengers improves after Metro conducts training for operators, then recedes back to bad habits. Maintenance also seems to lapse, he said.

“Those straps, for one reason or another, are not well maintained,” he said. “They slip, they do not catch. (Operators) hesitate to fasten all four tie-downs unless you are insistent.”

Johnson said while she rarely encounters trouble with the maintenance — or rude passengers for that matter — it is up to bus operators to provide the service.

“Everyone should feel comfortable to ride,” she said.