[blindLaw] Commuting from Outside the City

[Rob]

Out here in Minnesota rural transportation options don't exist, like at all. Ride services are limited to the major metro areas and almost none of them will venture more than a mile from the city limits. Paratransit exists in only a few big cities. In the smaller towns they have a bus that might go once a week to the bigger town. So you would catch the bus on, say Tuesday morning at 10 am and have to catch the bus back to the town at 2 pm. Taxi services are extremely rare also.
As a result, if you don't have a support network or willing friends who drive, as a blind person your only option is to live in the vigger city. Forget your dreams of the nice country place.
It's rather discouraging sometimes. You want to advance your career, but in order to do that, you need to move to the big city so you have transportation options to go to said career, but in order to move to the big city, you need money. And in order to get money, you need to advance your career. Catch 22.
----- Original Message -----
From: Kelby Carlson via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Kelby Carlson <kelbycarlson at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2020 13:28:47 -0500
Subject: Re: [blindLaw] Commuting from Outside the City

> Apologies if I sounded a bit harsh. Of course, there are benefits to using services like Uber, but overall it is more expensive to use it over buses/cars on a daily basis. It all does depend on where you are and what circumstances you are in.

My spouse did drive me to and from the metro on her way to work when we lived in D.C., but unfortunately that becomes much more difficult when the drive is farther and there are kids.