Per your request, I am sending you some stories of people I work with who are suffering because of the transit strike.
Personally, I live in the Wedge neighborhood and work both Downtown and in Phillips and do not have a car myself. I rely on the buses to get around the cities in my networking role as Director of Outreach. I have been biking in as I am able, but I have had to cancel or miss meetings, or depend on friends or my students for rides. Yesterday, I had to take a cab ride from Minneapolis to St. Paul because I was asked to testify in the Senate. The variety of my job - something that I love - makes it impossible for me to carpool. I am in a different place or come in at a different time nearly every day. My partner's been pushing me to buy a car - he's tired of me taking his car to complete errands in the evening I could not do during the day because I am less mobile. We've been a one car household for a year now, and I hope not to have to go back, but I'm worried that all of the supportive good-will will start to fade if the strike drags out. I'm annoyed by the strike, but I am not someone who is suffering - and I support the workers who are striking.
I took my bike in to the ALT for some minor repairs, and they said spring seems to have hit several weeks early. They have had a hard time keeping up with the demand.
I rent a room in my house to a public health student from Nigeria. Fortunately, we live close to grocery stores, but he has had to walk to the University. He does not have a bicycle, nor the income to afford one. He told me he wasn't exactly how to get to the University, as he usually took the buses, but he headed in that general direction and just started following people with backpacks. Many students across town who depend on the bus system were streaming towards the U in the morning. From our house, which is usually very accessible, and takes 6 minutes by express bus, it only took him an hour and a half to walk to school - each way. That's making pretty good time if you ask me.
Many of my patients and the young people I work with are less fortunate:
I had a patient from the CUHCC Clinic call me because he was out of his pain medication and had no way to get to the clinic from North Minneapolis to pick up the written prescription. Drug Enforcement Agency rules prohibit us from calling in narcotic prescriptions to pharmacies. Fortunately his pharmacist accepted a fax with the provision that I mail the original.
I run an evening clinic at 27th and Bloomington for underinsured and unstably housed people living in the Phillips Neighborhood (the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic). Our attendance there wasn't down as much, because most people live in the neighborhood, but I spoke with one man who usually works day labor in factories, often out in the suburbs. He has been unable to get work since the strike because there are no buses to take him to the jobs. He is worried that if the strike lasts he will not have enough money for rent and he and his family will lose their apartment.
I am a physician at YouthLink, the agency that runs Project Offstreets. The agency provides basic needs such as housing, transportation, health care, life skills training, and case management for the most vulnerable of our children. Visits to my clinic there are down 75%. Visits to the agency are down as well because young people cannot get there from their jobs or from home, or choose not to walk several miles 'just for dinner.' We have had to start providing van rides to the main shelters so that adolescents don't have to make the difficult decision between eating and having a bed to sleep in.
I spoke with a young man who lives in Archdale apartments - our transitional living program on 16th and 1st ave. He was homeless for many years, and recently was able to put things together enough to get a stable place to live and a job at the Mall of America. He can get to work on some of the suburban transit buses that still run down Marquette, but has no way to get home in the evening. He told me that he has to rely on friends to give him rides, and faces the prospect of walking home from Bloomington at 9 o'clock at night.
I also volunteer at District 202, a center for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning youth and their friends and allies. Attendance there, too, was down. I gave a ride home to a young man when his ride didn't show up by the time we locked the doors. Normally he catches the 18 down Nicollet and the 21 down Lake Street to where he lives with his parents. He faced walking over 50 blocks to get home, and reports that his mother has had to go into work late because she has to drop him off at his job in the morning.
Many of our most vulnerable are suffering, Mr. Mayor. This is a classist reaction of the wealthy suburbanites being unwilling or unable to put themselves in the shoes of the urban poor. Please be a strong voice.
Eric Meininger Lowry Hill East
Second, and more important, the past two days have seen hundreds of people go through real suffering. I talked to one man who works maintenance downtown who day rode his bike from Hopkins the second day...in the snow. We have been getting many other calls from people going through other real challenges because the buses aren't running, and it's important right now to tell those stories.
Toward that end I could use your help. Could people, either on list or direct to me, tell stories they have heard about what people have had to go through with the buses not running.....My goal is to have enough of these that I can get them into the media when they are trying to determine whether Strom is right or not. Much of the discussion has centered about those coming in and out of downtown, which is important, but I am especially interested in those whose experience and stories may fall through the cracks in other parts of town.
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Eric Meininger, M.D. ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Internal Medicine / Pediatrics Adolescent Health
Director of Outreach, Community University Health Care Center (CUHCC) University of Minnesota 612/638-0700 Direct dial: 612/638-0765 Fax: 612/627-4205
Medical Director, YouthLink Health and Wellness Clinic
612/252-1258
Direct dial: 612/252-1257 Fax: 612/252-1264
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