I just spent an hour with a man who has been kicked out of or attacked in most of the shelters in town. He will sleep outside tonight. January 17. It's been an unseasonably warm winter, yes, but it has been cold and rainy all day. And incredibly windy. He needs to get to a different state, where he has a job lined up and family. But he can't get there and no one has funding for transportation vouchers.
I called around and got kind people, but didn't end up with anything. In the end, he ate a bowl of chili and went to check out the church across the street. And I couldn't do a damn thing to change the situation. It isn't a shock - I have a lot of privilege, but no magic. But I felt so helpless. I, who could at any point look down and see the keys to my home, felt helpless. I, who who have been neither raped nor beaten during a period of homelessness as this man had, felt helpless. I, who would easily have a place to stay in this new city of mine or would be whisked home by my parents if the need arose, felt helpless.
What business do I have feeling helpless? I am home now. The heat just kicked on in the living room as I type this. My clothes stay in a dresser, not a garbage bag - which is not an ergonomic way of carrying things, let me tell you.
Why am I writing this? Processing? Yes. "Awareness-raising"? Maybe. I'm not really sure. But I spent an hour feeling useless. This guy spent yet one more, of what I'm sure have been many, hour hearing from others that he was. Fuck. I don't know. But something has to change.
Showing posts with label transportation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transportation. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Cars and Confessions
(or, Two Wheels, Four Wheels, Red Wheels, Kor's Wheels)
I have a confession to make. Early in our time here, a new friend was giving us a quick tour of different places in town and mentioned that she made it until mid-October taking the bus to work and then it became just too much of a headache - it was proving to be a huge cost emotionally as well as time-wise, so she asked her parents to drive her car to Detroit from California. Here is the confession part: While she was telling us this, I was having some judge-y thoughts. I, the city girl who has navigated life thus far without relying on my own car, would certainly do better. I don't get stressed by the bus but rather find it relaxing and quite a good time, meeting neighbors and having good conversation.
If we've been in any communication in the last couple weeks, you're probably already laughing at me. My dad will arrive in town later tonight driving none other than my new car, bought from a dear friend in Minneapolis. So this is me, eating my judgmental thoughts, eating my words, and feeling both excitement for the mobility and wider access this will afford me and a deep sense of loss and confusion.
I love riding the bus. My rainy day commute often includes some great conversations with people at the bus stop, at the station, and between the stop and work/home. I've seen and greeted neighbors outside of the neighborhood that I met at our bus stop, which is a big deal for a person newly arrived. But my rainy day commute also takes almost four times as long as my dry day commute by bike. Or sometimes it takes 1.5 times as long. There's just no telling. (Once it took 2 hours to get home, and home and work are only four miles away from one another.)
One thing I'm learning is just how well I'm used to things running and working out for me. From buses to how much national organizations/church bodies actually care about my town, I have lived in some places that were clearly pretty top-priority and now I am in a place that is decidedly not a priority for anyone outside of here. In El Salvador, the buses ran all the time, because everybody had to use them; in the Twin Cities, it's easy to assume that the whole ELCA has its business together. It's a lot harder to see privilege than it is to see its opposite, especially when you live surrounded by privilege. It's easy to assume that the way things work for you are the way they work for everyone. These are all things I knew theoretically before, but coming face to face with their reality on a daily basis is demoralizing. And I've only been at this seven weeks. After an especially long, soggy trip to work one day, I was talking with a volunteer* and I mentioned the hassle of busing here. He said that he liked it, since it made him get out and walk around more. My response (which thankfully stayed inside my head) was, "NO! That just doesn't pan out if you have to get your ass to work every day!" Or drop of your kids at daycare. Or get groceries, or go to the bank, or any of the many, many daily activities that don't go on within walking distance of your home. (Which, when you don't live in downtown or Southwest, is a whole lot of things. And I will also admit that I often wish I lived in Southwest - it is the Seward/Longfellow/Corcoran of Detroit, for sure.) It is really frustrating, though when I'm looking for humor in it, I think in terms of "I fought the buses and the buses won."
None of this is to say that I am not excited to have the vastly mobility of a car. Now I'll be able to join the choir at the Y, which will be good for my soul; I will have a lot more possibilities as far as church-looking goes. Plus I get to see my dad! It's just hard to get around the fact that this one more thing that I can do, while a lot of other folks don't have that option. Maybe I should focus less on getting 'around' it and just live in it. I want to write a set of commitments for myself as a car owner. I'll put them here if I get them into any polished state. In the meantime...happy trails? (I'll keep working on my sign-off.)
*In this guy's defense, he's young, here working as a farm volunteer, living next to the church, and an incredibly hard worker. So his current situation is perfect for taking time to walk around and take in the city, which is a thing I love to do, too, and don't begrudge him for a moment. The comment just caught me at the wrong time.
I have a confession to make. Early in our time here, a new friend was giving us a quick tour of different places in town and mentioned that she made it until mid-October taking the bus to work and then it became just too much of a headache - it was proving to be a huge cost emotionally as well as time-wise, so she asked her parents to drive her car to Detroit from California. Here is the confession part: While she was telling us this, I was having some judge-y thoughts. I, the city girl who has navigated life thus far without relying on my own car, would certainly do better. I don't get stressed by the bus but rather find it relaxing and quite a good time, meeting neighbors and having good conversation.
If we've been in any communication in the last couple weeks, you're probably already laughing at me. My dad will arrive in town later tonight driving none other than my new car, bought from a dear friend in Minneapolis. So this is me, eating my judgmental thoughts, eating my words, and feeling both excitement for the mobility and wider access this will afford me and a deep sense of loss and confusion.
I love riding the bus. My rainy day commute often includes some great conversations with people at the bus stop, at the station, and between the stop and work/home. I've seen and greeted neighbors outside of the neighborhood that I met at our bus stop, which is a big deal for a person newly arrived. But my rainy day commute also takes almost four times as long as my dry day commute by bike. Or sometimes it takes 1.5 times as long. There's just no telling. (Once it took 2 hours to get home, and home and work are only four miles away from one another.)
One thing I'm learning is just how well I'm used to things running and working out for me. From buses to how much national organizations/church bodies actually care about my town, I have lived in some places that were clearly pretty top-priority and now I am in a place that is decidedly not a priority for anyone outside of here. In El Salvador, the buses ran all the time, because everybody had to use them; in the Twin Cities, it's easy to assume that the whole ELCA has its business together. It's a lot harder to see privilege than it is to see its opposite, especially when you live surrounded by privilege. It's easy to assume that the way things work for you are the way they work for everyone. These are all things I knew theoretically before, but coming face to face with their reality on a daily basis is demoralizing. And I've only been at this seven weeks. After an especially long, soggy trip to work one day, I was talking with a volunteer* and I mentioned the hassle of busing here. He said that he liked it, since it made him get out and walk around more. My response (which thankfully stayed inside my head) was, "NO! That just doesn't pan out if you have to get your ass to work every day!" Or drop of your kids at daycare. Or get groceries, or go to the bank, or any of the many, many daily activities that don't go on within walking distance of your home. (Which, when you don't live in downtown or Southwest, is a whole lot of things. And I will also admit that I often wish I lived in Southwest - it is the Seward/Longfellow/Corcoran of Detroit, for sure.) It is really frustrating, though when I'm looking for humor in it, I think in terms of "I fought the buses and the buses won."
None of this is to say that I am not excited to have the vastly mobility of a car. Now I'll be able to join the choir at the Y, which will be good for my soul; I will have a lot more possibilities as far as church-looking goes. Plus I get to see my dad! It's just hard to get around the fact that this one more thing that I can do, while a lot of other folks don't have that option. Maybe I should focus less on getting 'around' it and just live in it. I want to write a set of commitments for myself as a car owner. I'll put them here if I get them into any polished state. In the meantime...happy trails? (I'll keep working on my sign-off.)
*In this guy's defense, he's young, here working as a farm volunteer, living next to the church, and an incredibly hard worker. So his current situation is perfect for taking time to walk around and take in the city, which is a thing I love to do, too, and don't begrudge him for a moment. The comment just caught me at the wrong time.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
From drowned rat to high and dry
I am sincerely hopeful that I've cashed in my bad bus karma for a good long while to come, all in a day's commute. This morning it rained steadily, not a downpour, but strong enough to soak. My bus stop has no shelter or trees nearby, so it was pretty much me and my coffee mug standing there waiting on the bus to come, which it did - 5 minutes late. Those five minutes made the difference between catching and missing my intended transfer at Rosa Parks Transit Center.
Missing the 21 bus was no big deal, because the 29 also runs by my work from the station. Fine - I hopped that but and arrived on time, soggy, but on time and in decent spirits.
Fast forward to the end of the day. I had calculated yesterday that if I leave work at 4:57, I can be home by 5:30, whereas leaving at 5:10 has me home after 6pm and waiting quite some time for my transfer in between. So I headed out at 5 'til 5, caught my bus (again, a few minutes later than scheduled, but in Minneapolis I frequent the 2, so I'm no stranger to wonky bus punctuality), and got to the station at 5:10 for my 5:15 bus home. 5:20 rolls around and still no bus. 5:40 comes (the departure time for the next bus) and still nothing. 6pm (the next departure time) and nothing - and all the while every other bus is rolling in and out like nothing has happened. By this time there are about 40 of us waiting for the #31.
At 6:20 (70 minutes later and 40 pages further in the book I'm reading), I hopped a bus that runs down a parallel street about a mile and a half south of our house. I took that bus to our cross street and walked up to the house.
The walk was good for me in several ways. I was able to settle my frustration a bit, just being in the cool air, seeing the few fallen leaves and the handful of people who were outside along the way. At the same time, I stayed frustrated at the fact that there were still 40 Eastsiders still waiting for their bus. I have no idea what happened to cause the (at least) triple no-show, but the other folks I was waiting with didn't seem too surprised. And there are any number of reasons why someone would have chosen to keep waiting rather than take the bus I took - having small kids, lots to carry, not being comfortable walking through the area between Jefferson and home, mobility issues.
So I'm frustrated, puzzled, unsurprised by this. A small part of me is glad that I was able to re-craft my plan on the spot, but that's a tiny victory (and mostly proves I can read the marquee on the front of the bus). And as goofy as it sounds, when I got home I was exhausted, just from that experience of waiting and not knowing when the bus would come. I had left work with grand plans of cooking up some of the beautiful produce we were given yesterday. But by the time I arrived at the house, I was beat. I warmed up leftover soup and sat down to President Obama's speech.
Like I said in reference to the 2 bus in Minneapolis - I am no stranger to waiting for buses, even in the bitter cold. But this has me thinking. What are the justice implications of 40 people from the poorest parts of Detroit just getting left at the bus station during afternoon rush hour? If any had to pick up kids from day care, they're looking at extra fees. If any had to meet with a parole officer, they could be looking at jail time. And shoot, if there were any others simply looking forward to cooking and relaxing for the evening, they lost that chance.
It's late and I'm tired, so I'll leave it there, except to say, on an entirely unrelated note: I have decided that the Rosa Parks Transit Center is probably the most aptly-named tribute to any person that I'm aware of. It's the polar opposite of naming an airport after Ronald Reagan. A transit station named after Rosa Parks. Hmm... I want to be the person who thought of that.
Missing the 21 bus was no big deal, because the 29 also runs by my work from the station. Fine - I hopped that but and arrived on time, soggy, but on time and in decent spirits.
Fast forward to the end of the day. I had calculated yesterday that if I leave work at 4:57, I can be home by 5:30, whereas leaving at 5:10 has me home after 6pm and waiting quite some time for my transfer in between. So I headed out at 5 'til 5, caught my bus (again, a few minutes later than scheduled, but in Minneapolis I frequent the 2, so I'm no stranger to wonky bus punctuality), and got to the station at 5:10 for my 5:15 bus home. 5:20 rolls around and still no bus. 5:40 comes (the departure time for the next bus) and still nothing. 6pm (the next departure time) and nothing - and all the while every other bus is rolling in and out like nothing has happened. By this time there are about 40 of us waiting for the #31.
At 6:20 (70 minutes later and 40 pages further in the book I'm reading), I hopped a bus that runs down a parallel street about a mile and a half south of our house. I took that bus to our cross street and walked up to the house.
The walk was good for me in several ways. I was able to settle my frustration a bit, just being in the cool air, seeing the few fallen leaves and the handful of people who were outside along the way. At the same time, I stayed frustrated at the fact that there were still 40 Eastsiders still waiting for their bus. I have no idea what happened to cause the (at least) triple no-show, but the other folks I was waiting with didn't seem too surprised. And there are any number of reasons why someone would have chosen to keep waiting rather than take the bus I took - having small kids, lots to carry, not being comfortable walking through the area between Jefferson and home, mobility issues.
So I'm frustrated, puzzled, unsurprised by this. A small part of me is glad that I was able to re-craft my plan on the spot, but that's a tiny victory (and mostly proves I can read the marquee on the front of the bus). And as goofy as it sounds, when I got home I was exhausted, just from that experience of waiting and not knowing when the bus would come. I had left work with grand plans of cooking up some of the beautiful produce we were given yesterday. But by the time I arrived at the house, I was beat. I warmed up leftover soup and sat down to President Obama's speech.
Like I said in reference to the 2 bus in Minneapolis - I am no stranger to waiting for buses, even in the bitter cold. But this has me thinking. What are the justice implications of 40 people from the poorest parts of Detroit just getting left at the bus station during afternoon rush hour? If any had to pick up kids from day care, they're looking at extra fees. If any had to meet with a parole officer, they could be looking at jail time. And shoot, if there were any others simply looking forward to cooking and relaxing for the evening, they lost that chance.
It's late and I'm tired, so I'll leave it there, except to say, on an entirely unrelated note: I have decided that the Rosa Parks Transit Center is probably the most aptly-named tribute to any person that I'm aware of. It's the polar opposite of naming an airport after Ronald Reagan. A transit station named after Rosa Parks. Hmm... I want to be the person who thought of that.
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