Help everyone cross the road #poetry #access

This is a tale
True one about me
And my experience
Being mum with disability

This is a story
About joined up planning
Well, lack of it
And lack of thinking

Remember I
Am blind; and also
Travel on wheels
Wherever I go

Yesterday Rachel
Needed to be
At a DT day
At Reading uni

I knew the bus
Went through campus
But I hadn't expected
The problem access

Not with the bus
No, that was great
But once off
At pepper lane gate

We couldn't cross
No such luck
Coz no dropped curbs
We were stuck!

This way and that
Rachel searched
Put matching curbs?
Don't be absurd

Clearly no one
Ever thought
Disabled people
Here would be brought

And so, it's crazy
Yet it's true
I took my scooter
Right into

The traffic!
There was no other choice
Guided by Rachel's
Accurate voice

With white stick
Stuck right out
With fear in throat
I expected shouts

But luckily
A kindly driver
Saw me there
Helped my travel

And somehow
We got into
Reading uni
As we planned to do

In the campus
Access was
Pretty good
With places to cross

So the issue here
Clearly is
No joined up thinking
About bus use

Brilliant bus
Great uni site
But at pepper lane
Disabled can't alight

My advice
To bus drivers
Is warm disabled
Passengers

If they'd told me
To stay on one stop
I'd have got off
At uni main stop

And there is great
No access problems
So that indeed
Is one solution

But better still
Would be Reading council
Adjusting the road
To keep us all mobile