Category: Daily Living
Has anyone fought a similar battle successfully?
Next semester, I have a class until 8:50 Am. I have another class at 2:40 Pm. That gives me almost 6 hours to work a 4-hour shift that I need to work in between those times.
My questioning of multiple people at paratransit has resulted in the same response: they are unable to accommodate my schedule because they require an hour and a half in between each appointments. I would thus need 7 hours of free time in order to use their services to guaranty that I was at work for 4 hours.
Knowing paratransit systems as I do, I know issues like these are not uncommon. I’m curious if any of you have encountered similar situations. Did you surrender to taking a cab? Did you fight and did it get you anywhere? I know every situation is different, but I’m simply curious what yall’s experiences have been. I’m looking around for further carpooling options as well, but am very hesitant to surrender to a cab. That would be extremely expensive and the bus route is inaccessible as well.
Forgive my impertinence, but how is the bus system inaccessable... too far away? Just curious..
The other worry I'd have with paratransit is, at least in most cities I know, they're notorious for being late on either or both sides of the trip. That means you'd likely be late for work, class, or both, running that tight a schedule.
I do not have paratransit in the town I live in right now. I am about to move to Raleigh NC and there I will but I am not going to use it. It's to bad you don't have better transportation. Mine here isn't the best but they would get me on time if I scheduled a ride.
What would happen if you tried to do it and just called them every five minutes until they got there to get you on time? I would start 15 minutes before they got to you. Call and find out the day before if they have it in the schedule, then that morning conferm it. Then fifteen minutes before call to find out if they are on their way. Then 5 minutes before to see if they are coming yet and then five minutes after until they get there. I know it is a lot but if your labled as someone who won't give them slack and leeway to be late with you, then they will get you on time. At least this is what I have found with my transportation here.
When I move I am not going to use paratransit. I have heard to many bad things and I can't stand to be late or to fight with transportation.
OMG, if I did all that calling, I'd be blacklisted. Sorry but yeah, that stuff happens.
Anyway, I agree with what Sister Dawn said about the general unreliability of para transit when it comes to tight schedules for things you've got to be on time for, you know, those silly little things like school and work. GRRR. This type of situation just makes my blood boil. Oki, off my soapbox now. I would definitely continue looking into other options. I know absolutely nothing about your financial situation or the distances you'd be traveling but would it be at all possible to hire a driver. I've found senior citizens to make some of the absolute best part time drivers in situations like this. Usually they're supplimenting their retirement income and have the time to work with your schedule. Also, if you have a particular cab driver that works well with you, he or she might be willingto negociate a lower rate for the trips since they would be onn a regular and dependable schedule. I don't know if you're lucky enough to have a cabby like that because they are rare indeed. There are several of us in my city who are blind and have worked privately with a cabby who is uniquely awesome, loves our dogs, and is an all around honest guy. I don't know what we'll do when he retires.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I wish you the best of luck with this situation because it does sound stressful indeed.
Thank you all for the comments. To answer the first poster's question, the bus route is inaccessible because the way busses work here is you have to wave at them in order to have them stop. They do make regular stops at some places, but not the place where I'm getting off, so they ask that the passengers wave at the drivers. I tried it once or twice, but ended up standing waving at a dump truck that sounded just like the bus lol. I mentioned this to the transit system people and they just said to take paratransit, which is what I did last semester when my schedule wasn't quite as tight before they said they can't accommodate me. If that were the only problem that might be doable, but the place where the bus stops doesn't have sidewalks around it, just tall weeds to walk through and a busy street without a light. This is what I've found anyway, which has made my confidence in the bus reliability for that particular route not enough for me to use it.
Thank you for the idea of talking to senior citizens! I've only hit up college students so far :)
I would call your city's public transit system and ask to set up a regularly scheduled expectation for the bus to stop. It's not guaranteed to work, but if the bus can be waved down by anyone, a regulated stop for you isn't that far of a stretch.
What a completely and utterly jacked up way to have buses know when to stop. Man, that really stinnks.
I wonder if they would consider something like having a flag with their logo or something affixed to the bus stop so you could raise and lower it when you wanted to signal the bus. I know it sounds like I'm talking about dinner at Panchos or something but really, you'd think they would want to get more creative as to how to take down barriors to the public system, thus reducing use of the para transit system. Again, I digress. In the major city where my hubby works, buses are required to stop if they see someone with a cane or service dog standing near a bus stop to announce what bus they are. Sometimes they don't but mostly they do and it works very well.
Again, I'm just throwing stuff out there to brainstorm as many ideas as possible. I think Ms. M is right as well, requesting that the driver passing by that stop be aware of you and the possibility that you'd want to ride really isn't that far fetched. From the sound of things, you're dealing with a very ass backward system so it may be up to you to help problem solve some of their issues. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass but don't we always end up doing this in various areas of our lives as people who are blind? I know your original question was about para transit because the bus isn't accessible but I just thought I'd throw some of this out there in hopes that perhaps it might help in making the public bus system more accessible to you. Sounds like that would sure solve your problem, assuming the drivers did their part and pulled their heads out of their butts.
That is a unique bus system. I've never heard of that before, and I'm sorry to hear paratransit can't be more flexible. I was going to suggest finding a driver. When it comes to college students, just be careful of who you pick. I've ended up with some nutty drivers, and it's been my first semester, and luckily I didn't hire them. It was just a spur of the moment. The one night I was out, and apparently a tornado warning was issued. A dude from my dorm saw me trying to get back to the dorm before it down poured, so he offered to take me back. I could tell he was a bit wreckless of a driver. He may have been buzzed, but that I'm not sure about. Anyway, best of luck. I hope it works out for you and doesn't turn out to be too stressful.
I agree about hiring somebody. Again, and I know the Social Service elitists on here hate it when I say this, but Craigslist is the Great Equalizer that all elitist infrastructures hate.
I hired several good drivers from there - and wouldn't hesitate to hire someone off there to go shopping with me if I needed something from a place where there is no assistance.
Does it cost? Yeah, but blind elitists sit down for this one: being blind is fuckin expensive, and we all know it. At least those of us willing to admit it.
I was fortunate in college to be in a big city so hooves and a bus pass was all I ever needed most times.
Wow. Waving at the bus to make it stop for you? I can see where that would be a problem. At least when I lived in Portland, Oregon wehad little books of numbers we could use. It had two sets of little pagges each with a numberfrom 0 to 9. So what you did was flip the book open to the bus number you wanted. So if you wanted bus 19 you'd flip the left side open to page 1 and the right to page 9. There were both print and braille numbers, so you'd just have the little book in hand displaying the bus number you wanted. Then at least most bus drivers would have te courtesy to identify their bus number for you, which by law they were required to do anyway but not all of them did. The same with announcing each stop as they approaced.
I have one of those pouches with the numbers! Except mine has three, which works great, because both in the city I got the folder, and the one I moved to, have 3-digit bus numbers. Thankfully I am usually only taking buses where only 1-2 stop, but at a busy downtown stop, that thing is SO helpful!
Personally, I don't pay much mind to bus numbers. I ask, are you going to point a. I've had experiences where I ended up missing a bus, because they changed the number without me knowing, because the bus was having some mechanical problems. It may have just been the bus system I used, but I feel better asking for the route or whether the bus goes where I need to get to, so I know that won't happen. Again, it's all in preference.
Having been married to a local bus driver for the past five years, I know how annoying it gets for drivers when asking if buses go to certain destinations. Now, obviously, if you are going to an unfamiliar area, etc., then by all means ask... but don't ask if they are going to Landmark A when Landmark A is where they have always gone.
My husband says that stating something like you don't know the area, or you're not from around here, gets him less cranky with the constant "Do you go to...." questions.
When I think about paratransit, my blood boils.
I had a job as a telemarketer a few years ago before i went back to college, and I almost lost my job because those sorry bastards were late so often.
I'd call and set up my ride 24 hours in advance just like they said to do, then they'd be there either 20 minutes early or 20 minutes late.
I can probably count the number of times they've been on time for me on one hand. I remember one time, the driver got there 15 minutes early, saw that I wasn't outside, and drove past my house.
When I called back, the folks at the paratransit office said that the drivers had a schedule to keep, and it wasn't their problem if i couldn't be ready 15 minutes early. This was, also, 15 minutes before the 15 minute window I allowed for fluctuation in time, so technically it was almost 30 minutes early.
Did I also mension how rude they were?
They also left me sitting at work after my shift had ended for over an hour on several ocasions.
I finally started using cabs.
A few things here.
I would not try Nicky's suggestion about calling them every five minutes. Others are right, you would probably get black listed, not to mention ignored as the crazy annoying person. I don't think it would help them be timely, and it would only make your relationship with the paratransit company far worse.
@Leo: What's with you and the social/ blind elitists? Why do you think we're all against Craig's list? Some friends and I hired a driver off of Craig's list a few years ago when I lived in Denver, and she was good. Very reliable, and eventually became more friend than driver. A bit of an odd personality, but that we could overlook. So I'm confused why you think everybody is against Craig's List.
To Roxtar, I hear where you're coming from. Also when I lived in Denver, paratransit made me late for work on more than one occasion. I may have been in danger of losing my job under any other employer, but my boss was a blind BEP vender who also used paratransit, so he was well aware of how they worked...or often didn't. And yes, I was often left sitting for ages after my shift ended. But it was far enough away from where I lived that cabs were not an option. It'd have been 45 bucks one way, and I just couldn't do that. So sometimes you have no choice, no matter how frustrating paratransit is.
i've had the same issues with paratransit also... they either show up early, late or not at all... i avoid using them when I can and just take the regular bus route.
I used paratransit here in Twin Falls for a while last semester I was in college, but I had the exact same problems. Once they even sent two buses out for me. I got on the first and was just pulling into the college campus when I got a call from dispatch asking where I was since the bus was at my apartment and I wasn't out there waiting. I told them I was just getting off one of their buses that had already picked me up. I think she was pretty embarrassed about that. I stopped using them though after they left me standing outside my last class of the day, whic had ended at most a minute or two later than it was scheduled to. So I had to call my mom and have her come get me and bring me home. That also happened to be on what felt like the coldest day of the year.
I'm fortunate enough to live in a large city in North Carolina that uses individual taxis instead of busses and vans for paratransit, and I believe we're one of the only cities in the country that still does this practice. Unfortunately, we're starting to move to a shared van system to save money. Still, this method is ideal because you can build personal relationships with your drivers. My cab company is almost always on time because I have the owner's phone number and have stayed with their company for years. in short, building a trusted partnership with a driver, whether they're a local taxi driver or someone you found off Craigslist, is a safe method of ensuring reliable transportation if you can make it work.
I don't agree, at all, with what Nicki said about calling them continuously. that'll do nothing but make things far worse. your best bet is to hire someone who you know can get you there when need be.
It's true. Calling them a lot just makes them mad. Every nagging phone call makes them exponencially less helpful.
It's the same when looking for a job. My rehab counselor is a very strong advocate of, to use her phrase, "being a squeaky wheel." And while there's nothing wron with an occasional followup call to a prospective employer in and of itself, I have noticed that it far more often does more harm than good, even if you're careful not to appear too eager or desperate. And even if it does no "harm" it's ot going to change the employer's mind if they've already decided they're not interested. The same can be said with calling paratransit. Even if you're unfailingly polite you still run the risk of annoying them even if they don't show it.
Yeah, something really needs to be done about paratransit, it's a long-lasting trend. What to be done is a whole other topic in itself though.
I guess it's a good thing that the city of Twin Falls has decent, if rather expensive even with the half-off discount seniors and disabled folks get, taxi services. I wouldn't want to use them every day to go to and from college or work if only because of how costly that would become, but most of the time they've gotten me where I wanted to go when I wanted to get there, at least in the last year or two when the company apparently changed hands. I used to absolutely hate them back about four years ago or a little more, particularly in view of the fact that back then they wouldn't let me apply the discount when I had to go to my folks' place while they were away. And they oftentimes made me late for appointments even when I called them a while in advance like they said to do. But the new folks that run it not tat I've used it in quite a few months, seem to have a better idea of how to do things.
I do agree that you need to show them you're not going to be a pushover, but there are better ways to do this than to call every five minutes, especially since they're not the usual business with competition. They really don't care if they lose you. In fact, they'd probably rather that than have to deal with you calling them constantly. Instead, try to raise awareness. If you can, team up with others who also have to deal with them. if there is nobody, find other locals you know that have seen them in action. Share your stories with the media. Having just one person doing this won't accomplish much, but I've seen first hand what can happen to your story if the media gets a hold of it. they tend to like stories about "disabled" people getting fucked over. I'm not saying make yourself look like the poor little blind person. Just share your woes about them; nothing more, nothing less.
As far as the issue of you finding transportation, I'd say either try to arrange a regular stop for the bus in your case, or try to hire a driver. As much as I would normally advocate fighting this battle, it's going to take hundreds of people to force paratransit to change for the long term, unfortunately.
going to the media would be one of the last things I would want to do but to each their own I guess.
I think going to the media sounds like a good idea. I'll look to collaborate with others in the same situation.
I would ask could you use the bus route, even for just part of your travels on these busy bdays? For instance, if the drop off is accessable, but the pick up isn't at a safe to travel to location, could you use it just 1 way? Alternatively, could you use a cab just 1 way? For instance if 1 of your gaps is big enough to accomidate the window paratransit insists on, and the other isn't, then use the cab for 1 way, and the paratransit for the other? My plan is to always know the city bus routes and the associated walking routes necessary to use them, to use the city bus whenever possible, then to use paratransit whenever the weather is a serious problem, and or when the city bus just won't work, then I use cabs last. But, I also prioritize cabs for times when the indignity of paratransit is going to drive me crazy, or the perception of paratransit is likely to be detremental, I.E. on a job interview day, take a cab, it's worth it. Hope that helps.
I'm late to responding to this topic: but thought I'd add my oppinion anyway: I like ya'll have had issues with paratransit, so much so that I stopped using them all together because they are so unrelyable... when I was in college, I'd either A. have one of my roommates drive me, or B. take a taxi... like most of you said, the taxi cab people sometimes lower your fairs depending on how often you choose to plan on using them.. other thing I don't like about paratransit is that they won't go out of their 'distance zone' for anything... not only that, but you have to schedule things waaay in advance... and I'm not to good with doing this, more times then not I'd be late for school/other things that I needed to get to because of them, so I just took cabs, cause I got tired of unrelyable paratranset, and not only that, but I'm not to good when it comes to the bus system at all... so I'd much rather take a cab/higher a driver then deal with paratranset anyday. Just my thoughts.
Amber
Ugh1i hate paratransit! There was this paratransit cab company that wasin the town where I went to college. When I was student-teaching, Iset up a ride, daily, to be picked up for school and to be taken homeagain. I used them for the first few weeks, even though they could arrive 15 minutes before or after my schooled pickup time, so Ihad to schedule a ride half an hour before I needed to be at school, which was only about a 5 minute drive, just to be sure I got there on time. Then a friend saw me waiting for them after school and insisted in giving me a ride everyday. She was studen-teaching at the same school. I loved her for it.