public transit

Tonight and tomorrow, Northeast WI is expected to get between eight and twelve inches of snow. I rather enjoyed not treading or driving through snow.
For the longest time, I used public transportation as my means of getting places. It was convenient at the time, it fulfilled my need to be independent, and it wasn’t expensive. For the longest time, I also had anxiety about driving which I unfortunately listened to.
With the snow coming in a pretty impactful storm, I think about all of the people who continue to require public transportation to get to work or to school or various appointments. I also think about the businesses and services that are not mindful of the bus schedules and weather delays.
I used to volunteer at the Green Bay animal shelter which is located in an odd spot, nowhere near a bus stop. It was quite the trek in the snow. I would volunteer on mornings when I had afternoon classes at UW Green Bay.
I also used the bus when doing night classes for my MSW. Classes would end at 9pm and the last bus would come at 9:30pm. I would get home at 10pm. Bus go-ers sometimes have to stand in driveways and streets in the winter because of snow piles, which can cause issues of safety especially when visibility is low.
When I worked at the Boys and Girls Club in the evenings, I would often walk the 8 blocks through downtown to the bus terminal to catch my bus, rather than waiting an hour to catch it a mere few feet from work.
Public transportation seems to be a dwindling service in our area. They have raised prices and cut hours and bus routes. There is little effort being made to connect people between the different city bus systems. Now there are more hourly routes and less thirty minute routes.
So I would ask that agencies and services be mindful of the transportation limits that clients and consumers have to deal with to hold on to that same level of independence and dependence that I once had to work around.