If you are a new parent and are pushing that stroller around all day, it will now be a lot easier to hop on a Metrobus.
Metro announced changes to its policy for strollers on buses Monday, aiming to make it easier for parents riding with babies or toddlers.
Instead of folding strollers, Metrobus riders can leave them open with youngsters inside, Metro said in a news release. The policy used to dictate that bus riders would have to fold their strollers, taking kids out in the process, before boarding.
“Getting on a bus, folding your stroller when you have a little one, (is) kind of complicated,” Metro General Manager Randy Clarke told WTOP.
He said the change is a way “to make sure the bus is really working and working for everyone.”
Clarke and other Metro employees were positioned at the Eastern Market Metro station in D.C. to welcome bus riders and to let them know of the new policy.
The D.C. transit agency estimated that about 5% of daily Metrobus trips — about 18,000 a day — involve riders taking their children to and from day care and school or running errands to the grocery store.
Metro said in the statement riders with strollers should sit in priority seating, engage stroller locks, keep aisles as well as doorways clear and hold strollers while the bus is moving.
Although riders with strollers are allowed to use priority seating, people with disabilities and seniors still have first priority. Bus drivers can also ask riders to move or fold strollers if they’re deemed a hazard to other passengers.
While it may be a small change, many mothers who stopped by Tuesday morning, such as Molly Kinder, a mother of three, are thrilled with change.
“It’s really helpful when I’m traveling … Sometimes we take the bus down to Navy Yard, and it’s quite challenging to have to collapse a stroller and carry everything” she told WTOP.
Clarke said certain parts bus routes typically have more passengers pushing strollers on board, such as by Woodley Park and the National Zoo and routes near the Children’s Museum.
“It’s really about just making the system work,” Clarke said.
Metro said it changed their policy after feedback from riders and other stakeholders. In deciding to allow open strollers, Metro reviewed the stroller policies at other transit agencies, including the District’s Circulator, Montgomery County’s Ride On and Alexandria’s DASH bus.
WTOP’s Luke Lukert contributed to this report.
