Anybody else would have simply walked off the bus. But that wasn’t an option for social worker Terri-Lynn Langdon, a wheelchair user, who found herself stuck on the TTC’s 509 on Queens Quay for about an hour recently.

Langdon became ensnared in a disagreement on the May holiday Monday between another wheelchair rider and a bus driver in an incident she said reflects poorly on the training and supervision of TTC operators and the system’s treatment of riders with disabilities.

Both women got on at Union Station. Langdon was heading home. The other rider, who later said her name was Angie, asked the driver to call the stop for the ferry docks, as she was planning to meet friends for a trip to the island.

When she realized that the driver had not only failed to call the stop but had driven right past it, she moved into the aisle and asked to be let off. Other passengers were allowed to exit the bus onto Queens Quay, which is under construction. But Langdon said the driver refused to deploy the ramp, saying the stops weren’t safe.

He told Angie to move her wheelchair out of the aisle and warned that he would take the bus out of service if she didn’t move back into the accessible area.

When Angie insisted she was allowed to remain in the aisle, the driver threatened to call the police.

Instead he called his supervisor and pulled over near Harbourfront Centre to await a transit enforcement officer. Other riders were dispatched onto the street — all except Langdon and Angie.

“He closed the doors and refused to let the ramps down,” said Langdon.

The other woman said she was a diabetic and needed insulin. She even called 911 to complain she was being forcibly confined but was told by police to wait for a TTC official to arrive.

“I’m not diabetic, but I needed to eat,” said Langdon, who asked to get off the bus but was denied.

When a uniformed TTC enforcement officer finally arrived, Langdon said he “was quite lovely and apologized.”

She said the situation may have escalated when Angie referred to the bus driver with a derogatory term. But Langdon said the encounter seemed to escalate because the driver appeared to believe wheelchairs weren’t allowed in the aisle, something the TTC has said isn’t true.

TTC spokesman Brad Ross apologized for the incident, saying, “We should have handled this better.”

“The stop announcement was clearly missed and should not have been,” he said.

When automated stop announcements aren’t working, the driver is expected to call the stops. While the operator was concerned about being able to safely deploy the wheelchair ramp on Queens Quay, he has a responsibility to effectively communicate that to all customers, said Ross. That driver has been counselled, he said.

TTC drivers receive training in dealing with riders with disabilities, including briefings from members of the system’s Accessible Transportation Advisory Committee.

But Langdon said there are pervasive problems with the way the TTC serves wheelchair users. Half the time, she said, she cannot board buses because the drivers tell her the ramps aren’t working.

In theory, buses shouldn’t be going into service without a working ramp, said Ross. Drivers are supposed to check the ramps before a bus goes out. But it won’t be taken out of service if the ramp doesn’t deploy.

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Riders are asked to report ramp failures with the bus number, the time and the stop by calling 416-393-3030.

The number of rider complaints about wheelchair ramps dropped slightly between 2011 and 2013, from 600 to 542. Ross said that’s probably because of increased diligence by bus maintenance staff and because older buses, which are more prone to ramp failure, are being retired.

Langdon said she sometimes calls the TTC to report not being able to board, but sometimes she doesn’t have time and doesn’t want to sit on hold to complain.