Situation 11
I was headed to a hospital in San Francisco to visit my mother, which I had
never been to before. I had several public transportation options and it
was raining hard.
Question 11
What transportation would get me most efficiently to the hospital and how
would I navigate on the street without getting the BrailleNote wet?
Answer 11
I set the hospital's address, 45 Castro Street, as a virtual location. From
Virtual mode and I searched for the nearest POI in the Train category. The
16th and Mission BART station was closest. I knew that a taxi ride from the
Amtrak stop would be expensive so I took Amtrak to Richmond and switched to
BART there. I pulled up the BART stations from a route file I had
previously created and counted the number of stops since I couldn't hear
them being announced
I ended up with a 1.3 mile walk from the BART stop to the hospital and
partially up hill. I jumped on the first bus that came along and asked the
driver to drop me off as close to my destination as possible, which turned
out to be about 6 blocks from the hospital. The GPS was tracking great,
even inside the bus and it was easy to see I was getting closer and where
to get off the bus.
When I got off the bus it was poring rain so I stepped into a doorway to
explore my remaining route to the hospital. I set my Explore position to my
GPS position with Chord G. I then set a route to my destination and studied
the route. I learned that I had 5 streets to cross on my side of Duboce
street before I reached Castro. I did this simply by advancing from block
to block with the Chord dots 2356 on the PK. I then pressed M for Multiple
repeat and D for destination. I turned the volume up and zipped the PK
inside my jacket. I knew to count 5 blocks and I could just hear the PK
talking inside my jacket, protected from the rain.
Besides hearing my destination announced, each intersection was announced
as I approached it. Once I heard that friendly announcement that I had
reached my destination, the tricky part was finding the correct entrance to
the hospital. For the first time on this trip, I asked a sighted person for
directions. Before going inside, I marked the entrance as a POI for future
reference. When I walked into my mother's room, I felt like a little kid,
fitting a puzzle together as the last piece snapped into place.
Michael G. May
CEO Sendero Group
MikeMay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.SenderoGroup.com
(1-888-757-6810, Fax (530) 757-6830, Mobile (530) 304-0007 Sendero Group, LLC 1118 Maple Lane, Davis, CA 95616-1723, USA
Latitude, 38 33 9.239 North Longitude, 121 45 40.145 West
