Pregnant and disabled people want commuters to look up from their phones

Lucy Baker, a creative director at PR firm Earnies, couldn’t believe what her pregnant sister told her earlier this year.

People rarely, if ever, offered their seat for her while on the London Underground, even as she stood looking down at them.

Instead, commuters were glued to their phones.

‘Wondering if this was unique to her, I fell down many a Reddit rabbit hole and scrolled a million Mumsnet articles, to find that the issue is really widespread,’ Lucy, 32, tells Metro.

‘It painted a bigger picture of accessibility in London, and how travel on the Tube is so difficult for people who have disabilities. It felt like a shame.’

But in April, Lucy got an idea. Instead of a sign just above the priority seat, asking people to keep it empty for those who need it, why not whack a sticker on the floor instead?

This way, commuters staring down at their screens (or reading the Metro newspaper, of course) will be encouraged to look up and tell a pregnant, disabled or elderly person: ‘Would you like my seat?’

‘Largely I’d say Londoners are a generous bunch, albeit reserved, especially on the Tube’ Lucy said.

‘So I thought, hey, why not message TfL and see what they think about changing up their signage to give people that behavioural nudge?’

One month later, TfL did just that. The transport authority announced it is trialling stickers on Docklands Light Railway (DLR) trains that ask passengers to ‘look up’.

‘Give this seat to anyone who needs it more,’ the sign between a passenger’s feet says.

Lucy is now calling on TfL to roll out the stickers on the every Tube line.

‘At a time when they’re under a lot of heat for the strikes, it would feel like a positive gesture of good will for the public,’ she says.

‘And, hopefully, it would make a real difference to those who are currently travelling in discomfort.’

Bad train manners are nothing new in London, with roughly a third of mums-to-be travelling on the Tube are never offered a seat, according to a survey by TfL in 2006. Some have even had to ‘prove’ to riders they’re pregnant.

But Londoners have their reasons, apparently. Research by TfL found in 2019 that one in four commuters feel too ‘awkward’ doing so.

To help Londoners do something groundbreaking – be polite – TfL has introduced various schemes to make public transport accessible.

These include ‘Please offer me a seat’ badges, or making more than a third of the Tube network, over half of London Overground stations and all Elizabeth line stations have step-free access.

Some Londoners have a non-visible disability, a condition that isn’t physically evident, such as depression, autism or chronic fatigue.

There are schemes to show people living with non-visible conditions get help, including the sunflower lanyard.

Yet Jamie Strudwick, who lives in Hull, says that navigating trains in London can be tricky. The 27-year-old political campaigner has bilateral talipes, often called clubfoot, in which one or both feet are turned inward and down.

‘It causes quite extreme pain which makes it difficult to walk and stand – so, when I’m in London, walking 500 miles through the Underground to get to the train platform is difficult – and then if the train is busy, you’ve got no hope for a seat,’ he tells Metro.

Research has shown that some disabled people feel there’s not enough priority seats on trains, giving rise to a ‘hierarchy’ of which people need them more.

‘If you’re young and disabled, there’s almost like an unwritten social rule that says, “you’re young, you shouldn’t need this seat”,’ Jamie says. ‘It’s almost like feeling you’re not disabled enough to warrant accessibility.’

Emma Strain, TfL’s customer director, tells Metro that officials want the London’s public transport to be accessible to everyone.

‘We encourage everyone to look up and offer their seat to others if they can, regardless of whether they are official priority seats or not,’ she adds.

‘We’re currently analysing the results of our trial of floor stickers and other messaging on DLR services to understand their effectiveness, alongside examining feasibility for other services and speaking to a range of groups to understand the best way to spread this message across the London transport network.’

For Cat Whitehouse, the co-CEO of the disability charity Transport for All, however, disabled commuters need more than stickers and politeness.

‘TfL’s floor stickers are interesting, but it’s only an interim solution,’ she tells Metro.

‘Ultimately, we need less overcrowding on public transport, and enough priority seating for every disabled person who needs it, so that we can all travel easily.’

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