Max Uhler needs a cane to walk and a bus to get to the grocery store. The Metro Transit strike, he said, has left him ÿpretty much stuckÿ in a world that extends no more than a block from his one-bedroom apartment in south Minneapolis.þþÿI don't have any family,ÿ said Uhler, 61, who said he has congestive heart failure and has had two hip replacements. There is no money in his Social Security disability check to pay for a car, he said, and ÿI don't have any friends who drive.ÿþþAlthough many commuters have found the effects of the bus strike to be surprisingly minimal, Uhler is part of a hidden population for whom the lack of bus service is a suffocating burden. þþMost are poor and among the 20 percent of households in Minneapolis -- and 17 percent in St. Paul -- that have no car.þþJimmy Green, a temporary worker, rides a bicycle to his job loading milk and ice cream onto trucks in north Minneapolis for $9.50 an hour. Brian Merrick stays home in Minneapolis, with no way to get to his job as a handyman at a St. Paul bookstore. Jurez Slaughter, a 21-year-old who lives in Brooklyn Park and works as a receptionist in Minneapolis, relies on his mother and friends for rides.þþSuch people often ÿdon't talk because they've been taught no one listens,ÿ said Heidi Batten, a Salvation Army case manager. And even if they wanted to call the politicians and bureaucrats to complain that the bus strike has made life harder, ÿthey don't have the confidence to do it,ÿ she said.þþAt Hope Harbor, the 96-unit housing complex the Salvation Army operates in downtown Minneapolis, John Robinson began to walk away Friday when he was asked about the effect of the bus strike. He was not, he said, an ÿimportantÿ person. Robinson, 40, wearing a hood to block a cold wind as he waited for a ride, said he lives in Brooklyn Center and works part time in Coon Rapids.þþÿIt, like, paralyzes the city,ÿ he said.þþHe said he had relied on the bus to get to the Mall of America, where he had a temporary job stopping shoppers to get them to answer questions for a marketing survey.þþNow, he said, he will rely on his girlfriend or ÿpay for a ride.ÿþþOn a nearby job board, there were postings -- Computype in Roseville needed production workers at $10.71 an hour -- but with no buses, there is no way for many would-be workers to get there. A shipping-and-receiving job in Bloomington offered as much as $14 an hour, but that, too, was more than 10 miles away.þþGreen said he began his job in north Minneapolis a week ago and said he decided to ride a bike before the strike began, because he gets off work at 3 a.m. and the buses do not run as often then.þþWith the strike, he said, he might start keeping his bike up in his room at Hope Harbor. More people, he said, will ÿsteal bikes now -- the buses aren't running.ÿþþBatten, of the Salvation Army, said that on Thursday, the first day of the strike, four people asked her for vouchers so they could go to a Salvation Army thrift store and get a bicycle. But the vouchers can't be used for bikes.þþIn an average month, Batten said, she gives out $2,000 in bus cards for the poor to get to jobs, and bus tokens for many of the same people to get to medical appointments. A sign on her office door, quoting C.S. Lewis, says, ÿThe interruptions are life.ÿþþIn a few instances since the strike began, said Cathy McVey, another case manager at Hope Harbor, staff members have offered rides to clients who need to have medical prescriptions filled. ÿIt's extremely crucial they not go off their meds,ÿ she said.þþSlaughter, who works at Hope Harbor as a $9.25-an-hour receptionist, got off work early Thursday -- just hours after the strike began-- and his mother gave him a ride home. When he returned to work at 10:30 p.m. Thursday, he got a ride from friends.þþThose kinds of favors probably will not last, Slaughter said. ÿMy friends live in Minneapolis,ÿ he said. ÿSo they have to go to Brooklyn Park to bring me downtown.ÿþþHe said he may have to get a car. But, he added, ÿmy whole check is going to have to goÿ toward buying and maintaining one.þþSitting in his apartment, Uhler has had plenty of time to read about the strike on the Internet. Much of what he reads, he said, is ÿquite upsetting.ÿ Especially unnerving, he said, are comments from those who argue that the strike's seemingly minimal impact shows that the bus system is an expensive, unnecessary burden for taxpayers.þþÿThey just don't get it,ÿ said Uhler, a self-described history enthusiast. ÿPublic transportation is part of the infrastructure of any country. It's a public service. It's like the roads. It's like the power lines.ÿþþ
Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune
