"Please. Just let one wheelchair on."
Rain fell steadily over Hyehwa-dong Rotary in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday morning as members of the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination, known by its Korean acronym Jeonjangnyeon, stood in the middle of a bus-only lane without rain gear and blocked Bus No. 160. The bus was already packed with some 60 office workers and students heading to work and school.
The group staged about an hour of demonstrations from 8 a.m. Wednesday, demanding a full revision of the Act on Guarantee of Mobility Rights for the Transportation Disadvantaged. Around 20 protesters, including five wheelchair users, waited at the bus stop near Hyehwa-dong Rotary. Those in wheelchairs wore rain ponchos; those who were not stood in the open rain.
The roughly 60-meter-long bus stop was packed shoulder to shoulder. Police and journalists crowded around the wheelchairs, narrowing the sidewalk further. As the rain intensified, umbrellas clashed and foot traffic ground to a halt. Some passengers who stepped off buses could not get directly onto the sidewalk and had to detour through the roadway. Police directed traffic to let pedestrians pass between vehicles.
Protesters declared that accessible public transit was "a basic constitutional right" and called on Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon to make low-floor buses 100 percent of the city's fleet. They also urged the government to guarantee mobility rights for people with disabilities, noting that users of special transportation services sometimes wait up to 12 hours and nine minutes for a ride.
Reactions from commuters were mixed. A woman in her 30s on her way to work said she wished the protesters would avoid days like this. "It's raining and I got completely soaked — I couldn't even open my umbrella," she said. Jang Ha-jun, 14, a student at Dongseong Middle School nearby, and his friends said a wheelchair had blocked a traffic signal the previous week, holding up buses for some time. "Mobility rights for people with disabilities matter, but so do the rights of people trying to get to school and work," they said.
Some commuters were sympathetic. Graduate student Kim Ji-yong, 26, stepped off the bus the protesters were trying to board and said, "My inconvenience lasts a moment; their anxiety lasts a lifetime. We should be able to put up with a brief disruption like this." He added that some passengers on the bus had grumbled, but said the rain had made everyone more on edge.
Before boarding, the group's representative said the rain was too heavy to use a step-entry bus and that they would take a low-floor bus to Marronnier Park instead. "On a Wednesday like today, riding a step bus would leave you looking like a drowned rat," the representative said, adding that the group expected the Act on Guarantee of Mobility Rights for the Transportation Disadvantaged to be fully revised within the year, given that the Lee Jae-myung administration was now in its second year.
It took about 15 minutes for all five wheelchairs to board. The first wheelchair boarded Bus No. 102 bound for Myeongnyun 3-ga around 8:27 a.m. after a roughly one-minute standoff with the driver, with no significant delay.
One crowded bus was held up for about three minutes while a wheelchair user boarded. An activist stepped inside and asked passengers to make room toward the back. A passenger getting off scowled and muttered, "What is this?" Several low-floor buses that pulled in shortly after were already full and departed without taking on any wheelchair users.
The group's representative boarded Bus No. 272, which has steps. Although the plan had been to take a low-floor bus, the low-floor buses that arrived were full, so the representative opted for the step-entry bus instead. One activist held the front of the wheelchair while three others pushed it up from behind. It took about three minutes for the representative to clear the steps and get inside. Protesters who remained at the scene pointed at the bus and said, "There are still buses that discriminate against people with disabilities."
There were no major confrontations, though minor disruptions broke out in several places. Around 8:40 a.m., as the last wheelchair was boarding, activists carried speakers and remaining equipment onto the bus with them. When an activist's amplified remarks and music continued inside the bus, one male passenger shouted "This is so loud, seriously" and got off.
The protesters disembarked at Sungdae Ipgu and gathered at Marronnier Park, and did not stage a return demonstration. The group plans to continue its Wednesday morning bus-boarding protests every week.
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