I travelled alone on my latest trip to the US. I made things as easy as possible for myself; not much luggage, riding on the golf cart in the airports, using the disabled lineups at Customs, shuttles to/from the airport, etc. However, that just covers airline travel. I was out and about in Palm Springs and Santa Monica on my own for 5 days. I also spent 2 weeks in Vancouver venturing downtown 5 days a week and making my way around on public transit. I found that on any kind of public transit almost everyone is very courteous and helpful. On the streets, however, the 2 locales differed vastly. In the US, I was given a considerable amount of personal space to negotiate my way around on the streets. There seemed to be a greater respect for those with a disability, my thinking is that Americans are very patriotic as a whole and are taught to respect war veterans, which can be the cause of disabilities in young persons. In Vancouver, I had to be vigilant at all times around me as people were much more self-absorbed in their ambling around. Perhaps a faster, busier pace than Santa Monica would probably account for this in part.

I am disappointed with the services of the Handy Dart. I registered for using it in Vancouver in case I found public transit too difficult. One has to have pretty much a 2 hour window around each trip. For instance I called about a 10 minute drive to downtown for an appointment at 9am. I was told I could be picked up in the window of 7:00-7:30. Truly, how do people cope with this kind of scheduling?