{"id":61939,"date":"2024-01-04T10:26:55","date_gmt":"2024-01-04T18:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=61939"},"modified":"2024-01-04T10:26:55","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T18:26:55","slug":"going-to-vote-going-to-church-in-alabama-dont-rely-on-public-transit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=61939","title":{"rendered":"Going to Vote, Going to Church? In Alabama, Don\u2019t Rely on Public Transit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Mark Hedin<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Alabama is among just a handful of states where public transit is paid for not by the state but cities and counties, according to their ability and willingness to pay for it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When it comes to supporting public transit services, Alabama is near dead last among states, creating serious barriers for Alabamians just trying to get to work or to school, to church or to vote. For people with disabilities, the situation can be life-threatening.<\/p>\n

That was the message at a\u00a0recent press briefing<\/a>\u00a0hosted by the\u00a0Alabama chapter of the League of Women Voters<\/a>\u00a0and the Alabama Disability Rights Coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe road builders got their hooks into the money and kept every single bit of it,\u201d said Dev Wakeley with the non-profit advocacy group\u00a0Alabama Arise<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s deplorable and shameful. We\u2019ve been dealing with the stark societal consequences of it ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wakeley was among a panel of speakers that included State assemblyman Neil Rafferty, along with community activists and would-be transit customers \u2013 including some who cannot drive \u2013 all of whom described how Alabama\u2019s substandard public transportation system affects their lives and what might make things better.<\/p>\n

\u201cBound to fail\u201d<\/h2>\n

According to Rafferty, most states use gasoline tax money to pay for their public transit systems. All of Alabama\u2019s neighboring states do. But in \u201cthe Heart of Dixie,\u201d an early 1950s amendment to the state constitution put those funds off-limits for that purpose.<\/p>\n

So public transit in Alabama is paid for not by the state government but cities and counties, according to their ability and willingness to pay for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all need public transportation,\u201d said John Northrop of\u00a0Alabama Coalition for Transit<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s how I got through college.\u201d Birmingham buses carried him to and from Birmingham Southern College and his part-time jobs downtown when he didn\u2019t yet have a car.<\/p>\n

But in Alabama, \u201cNot enough people have had positive experiences with public transit, and don\u2019t understand the benefits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have such a patchwork system in the state, it\u2019s bound to fail,\u201d Rafferty concurred. \u201cPeople can\u2019t rely on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few transit options for disabled Alabamians<\/h2>\n

Percy Garrett, currently on the legislative committee for the National Federation of the Blind, spent 22 years as an active-duty Marine, going around the world on land, air and sea, he said.<\/p>\n

After offering a \u201csemper fi\u201d to Rafferty, he related his experiences since losing his eyesight the year after retiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I\u2019m stuck in Alabama as a caged Marine,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m homebound. \u2026 My goal is to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for now, he said, he can\u2019t get to legislative sessions in Montgomery. And \u201cin the last election,\u201d he said, he called Houston County Transit to go vote, \u201cand they said they couldn\u2019t do it. I had to call Uber, had to pay a massive amount of money just to go vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, Rafferty said, Alabama created a Public Transportation Trust Fund to support the state\u2019s transportation systems. But there\u2019s still no money in the fund.<\/p>\n

So, he said, Alabama seems to have two paths forward: Fund the trust fund or amend the state constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re being held in captivity since 1952,\u201d said Barbara Manuel, who is vision-impaired. She described an array of seemingly arbitrary obstacles she had to overcome to get even the minimal transportation services available.<\/p>\n

Some of her neighbors, she said, can\u2019t even get to important medical appointments.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegislators, we are asking you to please, please, hear our voices. I would go even further and ask you to place your (car) keys in your desk drawer for one week, and try to access public transportation. Then you would be able to see some of the issues that we face here in the state of Alabama.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t solve everything overnight,\u201d she said, \u201cbut at the same time, a level of civility and dignity is due to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the 32% of Alabamians whose disabilities make driving themselves impossible, reliable transit services would be a God-send.<\/p>\n

Private vs public transportation<\/h2>\n

Lawyer Laurence Povinelli and his wife, both legally blind, moved to Huntsville, Alabama\u2019s largest city, from nearby Madison. They were working at the Army\u2019s Redstone Arsenal, which is located between the two and employs 39,000 people, but there was no paratransit service available in Madison.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to set up our own private driver network through connections,\u201d he said. \u201cUnfortunately, most people do not have access to such resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where public transit of any sort is available, he and others said, using can be overwhelmingly difficult due to limited hours, range and service interruptions or, especially in the case of paratransit services, having to make reservations days in advance.<\/p>\n

Those things make it hard to keep a job, or even get hired.<\/p>\n

Jill Rossitor, of the National Federation of the Blind, Alabama was deemed legally blind at age 18 and has never driven a car, depending instead on friends, other drivers, or her now-grown children. She counts herself as very fortunate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe things that make life important are not just going to the store and to work,\u201d she said. But for her, \u201cjust to take my children to a park was an impossibility.\u201d So were after-school activities, such as football, cheer, or dance, she said, and when it comes to going to church on Sundays, there\u2019s no hope of getting there via public transportation, even now. None of the services her community has run on Sunday mornings.<\/p>\n

For some situations, people will suggest she use \u201cride-sharing\u201d options such as Uber or Lyft, she said. But a trip that would cost her $3 on the bus is $33 that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not worth it. I would just take a personal day. But how many of those do you get?\u201d<\/p>\n

Infrastructure Law<\/h2>\n

Alabama is one of just three U.S. states that doesn\u2019t fund public transit, but doing so would be a solid investment, Wakely said.<\/p>\n

Although six of Alabama\u2019s seven representatives in the U.S. Congress, and both senators opposed the 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, it nonetheless provided more than $76 million for transit projects across the state, including $11 million for Birmingham and $4 million for Montgomery.<\/p>\n

Getting elected officials to approve anything that looks like a new tax, Wakely admitted, \u201cis a heavy lift,\u201d so a general fund appropriation might be the way to go.<\/p>\n

But, however they do it, he said, \u201cthe return is HUGE.\u201d<\/p>\n

More federal funds are available to match state allocations dollar-for-dollar for staffing needs, for instance, and when it comes to \u201ccapital outlays\u201d \u2013 things like buying new buses \u2013 the match is 4-1. Some of those federal dollars, if the state reaches out for them, might never leave Alabama. New Flyer\u2019s Anniston facility is one of the largest electric bus factories in the United States. Already, in 2019, Huntsville\u2019s Alabama A&M University successfully electrified its campus bus system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByMark Hedin Jan 3, 2024 Alabama...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61940,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61939\/revisions\/61940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}