Here in Jefferson County, most of the county is under served by
transit or by para transit(called Dial A Ride) The vast majority of
this large rural county lies East of and in the Olympic mountains, but
a small portion is along the Pacific Ocean, backed up against the
rugged Western Slopes of the Olympics. Those folks in Western
Jefferson county have no para transit service, and very little fixed
route buses. The Eastern portion of the county is mostly forests and
small villages...like Quilcene. The population, such as it is, around
18 thousand, live in the Port Townsend, Port Hadlock, Chimacum area.
The outlying areas have round trip service twice daily, one trip in
the early morning and one in the early evening. No Sunday service.
Some areas close to Port Townsend(population about 9,000) have been
cut to one day a week service. The Para Transit(Dial A Ride) is
allowed to go half a mile beyond the fixed route stops.
Since moving here in 1995, we've seen the public transportation rise
to almost adequate levels, and drop to a new low. But I see Uber is
posting record earnings.
Since most folks out here are not living much above the poverty line,
Uber is drawing most of its revenue from the poor. Fortunately Port
Townsend has ECCHO, a non profit organization that was founded by
three churches. ECCHO provides many community services such as
volunteer drivers, loan of hospital equipment, etc.
There's something comforting about a community that comes together
with volunteer services rather than looking for ways to turn a dollar.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/27/17, M Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I rejoined the Long Island chapter of ACB in order to get on the email list
for very self serving reasons. I need to find a local computer person for
the times that Carlos disappears. Anyway, I just received one of the first
posts. I really don't usually follow Long Island news because it is so
depressing. So what I just found out is that there are plans to cut all of
the public bus routes on Long Island. No surprise to me. Nassau County
contracted with Violia several years ago, a huge multi-national
corporation.
None of the LICB leadership saw anything wrong with the move. In fact, they
were in favor of it. Our Tea Party county executive was responsible for
cutting ties with the MTA because of conflicts over money Nassau County
owed
the MTA. Going from the MTA to Violia was like going from the frying pan
into the fire. Of course, if bus routes are cut, that means cuts in para
transit which, before 2010 in Nassau County, was providing service
independent of the public bus routes. This is really so terrible for blind
people living in the Long Island suburbs.
miriam
