Safety, Respect, Dignity
September 1, 2017 11:10 AM Subscribe
"Despite the advance scheduling and little room for change or spontaneity that Access-a-Ride demands of its customers, lack of predictability is the service’s hallmark trait. .. Access-a-Ride users have no idea which direction our rides will travel in or how many stops will be made before our destinations. In picking up and dropping off passengers on those rides, a meandering city tour is not uncommon — including riding past your destination only to ride back down to it." (via Longreads)
We have/had a similar service here in Amsterdam which my wife used to have to take during the time she was in and out the hospital for her kidney problems ( a year of dialysis followed by two years of combatting the side effects of a successful kidney transplant).
The hospital was all the way across the city from where we lived, but even so, taking public transport (with a tram stopping directly in front of it), rarely took more than forty minutes or so.
The taxi often took two hours or longer. Especially during dialysis this was godawful, as of course she wasn't at her best before a session and often completely wrung out afterwards. Because the system was set up to cater to everybody with a mobility problem, you get a lot of mixing of people who are using it to get to their medical appointments and those who use it for less time critical purposes, so she'd often take tours all across Amsterdam before reaching her destination.
The idea for this sort of service is to have a sort of compromise taxi/bus system, with adapted taxis that could handle people with health problems, but we'v had occassions when she needed to use a wheelchair and they showed up in a taxi with no room to stow her wheelchair and drivers who were completely useless or bad at driving in general.
It all comes down to money of course and this kludge of a system was put in place because providing actual tailored services to people with mobility problems is just too expensive. At least we never had a driver urinate in front of us...
posted by MartinWisse at 12:57 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
The hospital was all the way across the city from where we lived, but even so, taking public transport (with a tram stopping directly in front of it), rarely took more than forty minutes or so.
The taxi often took two hours or longer. Especially during dialysis this was godawful, as of course she wasn't at her best before a session and often completely wrung out afterwards. Because the system was set up to cater to everybody with a mobility problem, you get a lot of mixing of people who are using it to get to their medical appointments and those who use it for less time critical purposes, so she'd often take tours all across Amsterdam before reaching her destination.
The idea for this sort of service is to have a sort of compromise taxi/bus system, with adapted taxis that could handle people with health problems, but we'v had occassions when she needed to use a wheelchair and they showed up in a taxi with no room to stow her wheelchair and drivers who were completely useless or bad at driving in general.
It all comes down to money of course and this kludge of a system was put in place because providing actual tailored services to people with mobility problems is just too expensive. At least we never had a driver urinate in front of us...
posted by MartinWisse at 12:57 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yeah, the reason they send you on the five borough tour even when your destination is nearby? The carriers get paid according to the distance of your ride, not the distance to your destination. So they're incentivized to make your trip as long and arduous as possible.
posted by Soliloquy at 1:50 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Soliloquy at 1:50 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm an everyday user of Springfield's paratransit service. I've never had a driver take a "10-1" in front of me; in fact, the vast majority are good-hearted and good at what they do. It may be because I've been disabled a lot longer than the writer of this piece, but I have a certain fatalism about 30-minute pickup windows and route peculiarities. At the end of the day, curb-to-curb transit at $2.50 a ride within city limits is worth the occasional delay. But your mileage may literally vary.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 2:28 PM on September 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by DrAstroZoom at 2:28 PM on September 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
I wonder what happened to the driver who relieved himself right in front of her. WTF? No one should have to put up with that.
posted by tuesdayschild at 2:28 PM on September 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by tuesdayschild at 2:28 PM on September 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
That is an utterly gross experience!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 2:30 PM on September 1, 2017
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 2:30 PM on September 1, 2017
She does an amazing job of writing about it and taking us through the experience. Very much worth the read.
I've been trying to get my mother to use NJTransit's paratransit service and this does make me think twice.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 9:02 PM on September 1, 2017
I've been trying to get my mother to use NJTransit's paratransit service and this does make me think twice.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 9:02 PM on September 1, 2017
She explicitly says she is shocked and disgusted, and it sounds like she feels threatened by her driver's urination: "caught between panic and ridicule, shock and disgust...It occurred to me, though, that anyone who could calmly urinate in a customer’s presence was probably not someone I wanted to challenge or upset."
Maybe I'm just outing myself as a crass and unhygienic person here, but...is it really that shocking, disgusting, and threatening to urinate in public?
I've been in a number of situations, both as the guy peeing and as a bystander, where it would have been less safe or just not practical to take a separation. The response I've received and tried to give has always been one of forgiveness and support.
I've never driven a paratransit van, so I don't know how avoidable this is for them, but she did mention one of her drivers being on shift for fifteen hours straight. The other day, I noticed an Uber car parked by my stoop. The driver was standing on the sidewalk facing but not leaning on his car, holding a plastic drink bottle between his legs. I turned away and pretended I hadn't seen.
I don't know. I don't see the urination as the horror she depicts. I'm much more sad and upset about the long and circuitous routes, the unpredictable delays, and the long driver shifts. The long shifts in particular are going to kill someone if they haven't already.
posted by d. z. wang at 8:50 AM on September 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Maybe I'm just outing myself as a crass and unhygienic person here, but...is it really that shocking, disgusting, and threatening to urinate in public?
I've been in a number of situations, both as the guy peeing and as a bystander, where it would have been less safe or just not practical to take a separation. The response I've received and tried to give has always been one of forgiveness and support.
I've never driven a paratransit van, so I don't know how avoidable this is for them, but she did mention one of her drivers being on shift for fifteen hours straight. The other day, I noticed an Uber car parked by my stoop. The driver was standing on the sidewalk facing but not leaning on his car, holding a plastic drink bottle between his legs. I turned away and pretended I hadn't seen.
I don't know. I don't see the urination as the horror she depicts. I'm much more sad and upset about the long and circuitous routes, the unpredictable delays, and the long driver shifts. The long shifts in particular are going to kill someone if they haven't already.
posted by d. z. wang at 8:50 AM on September 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Less safe to separate for the man urinating, maybe. I'd imagine as a woman with mobility issues that I'd feel pretty threatened if the driver of my access-a-ride vehicle whipped out his penis in front of me while standing between me and the vehicle's exit.
It's also just pretty far out of social norms for someone to do that, at least in my experience, so I think that would also make me apprehensive about what other norms the guy might violate.
posted by ferret branca at 7:54 PM on September 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
It's also just pretty far out of social norms for someone to do that, at least in my experience, so I think that would also make me apprehensive about what other norms the guy might violate.
posted by ferret branca at 7:54 PM on September 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
She writes in the article that there were lots of options he could have taken. He could have waited 3 minutes and helped her out of the bus first - which is really what he should have done. He could have gone to the back of the bus to have more privacy, he could have stepped outside and faced the bus like your Uber driver, he could have just turned away from her so his penis wasn't in her line of view. He could have stepped outside and peed on the little green patch in front of her building and it would have bothered her less. He could have stuck his dick out and peed out the window - which would be more exposed - and it would have bothered her less.
She writes all this in the article.
I don't know what you mean by "take a separation", btw.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 8:55 PM on September 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
She writes all this in the article.
I don't know what you mean by "take a separation", btw.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 8:55 PM on September 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
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posted by muddgirl at 12:42 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]