A Rider's Experience with UCAT
Meet Paula Wisneski, a Kingston native who has been riding the bus for over 40 years. You can find her working and serving the community at People’s Place on St. James Street.
I met with Paula recently to learn about her experience as a bus rider. She takes the Yellow Route to work from her home at Stuyvesant Charter on Flatbush Ave. “Getting to work in the morning takes 15 minutes. Coming home takes over an hour,” she says. This is due to the circuitous nature of the yellow route. Rather than traveling straight back and forth, the route goes in a loop. And the bus often takes a detour to serve the jail, which adds to travel time.
Another problem with the Yellow Route - the frequency. The next bus comes an hour and a half later. So if she misses the bus, it becomes a stressful situation.
One day, a bus driver was running late, and did not come into Paula’s complex as they normally do. Paula was left stranded with no way to get to work. The next bus runs an hour and a half later.
For her doctor’s appointment in Port Ewen, Paula takes the KPL Route, which connects Kingston to Poughkeepsie. All in all, “it takes 4 hours for a fifteen minute doctor appointment.”
(She takes the 10 am Yellow bus to Kingston Plaza, which connects to the KPL at 10:30, arrives in Port Ewen at 10:50, then waits for her noon appointment, which is over by 12:15. Then she has to wait for the next bus at 2 pm.)
A trip to the shopping area in the town of Ulster also takes 4-5 hours of her day, most of it riding circuitous routes and waiting for the next bus.
In fact, “going all the way to Walmart in Naponoch takes less time than going to Ulster.”
Paula’s primary care doctor is in Rhinebeck, but no bus goes to Rhinebeck. She could potentially take the loop bus in Poughkeepsie, but that would mean a long day of travel for one appointment.
“It’s a challenge right now,” says Paula.
She qualifies for paratransit, which is door to door bus service for people with disabilities, but there is no paratransit on the weekends.
There is nearly no fixed route bus service on weekends, which leads to Sundays being spent at home. “I get a ride to church, then I come home and I stay here until it’s time to go to work tomorrow. Normally I don’t go anywhere on a Sunday. If there was a bus I would go places on Sundays.”
The area where Paula lives lacks sidewalks, and she says she’s afraid to walk. “We’ve been inundated with people being hit lately. Every single day I’m anticipating being hit. If someone stops for me, the person behind them don’t like it, they will go around and they could hit me.”
There is a new city project, “Safe and Accessible Flatbush and Foxhall,” which will hopefully create an environment more conducive to getting around without a car in Paula’s neighborhood.
Paula’s story reflects the current state of transportation in Kingston for those without a car. I hope that to catch up with Paula in a couple years and hear about improvements in safety and accessibility.
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