To the Disabled, with Love

To the Disabled, with Love

Wave Transit to eliminate services for the blind
Posted: May 27, 2009 10:22 AM
Updated: May 27, 2009 03:47 PM
Reported by Claire Simms - bio|email
Posted by Debra Worley - email
WILMINGTON, NC (WECT)  - Wilmington's Wave Transit is ending a program that many blind and visually impaired passengers depend on to get around.
Resident Libby Webb uses the taxi voucher program to visit the doctor, go grocery shopping, and to go to church.  She is legally blind and often calls taxis to get where she needs to go.
For now, Wilmington's Wave Transit subsidizes her transportation with taxi vouchers for the visually impaired.
"It was very good," said Libby. "It was very dependable to call our cab companies and there was no hesitation in them getting us back and forth where we need to go."
But that program is coming to an end.  Libby received a letter in the mail this month saying the vouchers would not longer be available.
Wave Transit Director Albert Eby said the decision to pull the program was based mostly on finances.
The vouchers cost $3 each for people in the program, then Wave pays cab companies and additional $7.50 subsidy for each trip.
The Transit Authority's letter also said the program had to end to comply with federal regulations, but Libby said those reasons don't mean much to people like her.
"We, who are visually impaired and don't have anyone to call upon, are trapped in our homes," said Libby.  "I feel they're taking our freedom away from us. If I had the money, I would do it myself."
Wave officials say they will help their current voucher customers transition to using paratransit vans, but Libby said that's not a good solution.  Instead of calling a taxi for immediate pick-up, she will now have to call at least 24 hours in advance to get a van to pick her up at home.
Libby will have ten more vouchers to use in June, then she and many other visually impaired passengers will have to find other modes of transportation.

From Dr. Morris-

I received the attached story this morning and would like to add to it as a totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected Veteran of the Korean Conflict. This program was in effect long before I knew anything about it. I have a car and usually have a driver, God has marvelously blessed me and I depend on Him and Him alone. But, there were times over the past 40 years that I did not have a driver and it was necessary for me to keep an appointment and I would call a taxi. I got to know many of them very well because, as a radio personality, and one who had been written about in papers and magazines, most recognized me right away. One asked me one day, when I was attempting to pay him (paying for things is the worst part of a blind persons life, we know how to distinguish coins, but it is absolutely impossible to distinguish bills. One can get easily confused, particularly when you live alone and most banks do not care whether they give you your money in any order when you cash your check) why I did not have vouchers as do most blind people and I told him I did not know anything about it. He explained the situation to me and I went to the bus headquarters to obtain some vouchers, which I would use on occasion. I have many here now, which supposedly will be of no use at all to me now. One thing that always amazed the driver of my car, blind people had to go to the bus headquarters to obtain the vouchers, but even though there was reserved parking right at the door for the manager and everyone else who worked there, there was no parking at anytime for blind people trying to get their vouchers. There is handicap parking everywhere except there! (This is another example of bureaucracy unconcerned because if there were any concern at all, careful arrangements would have been made for the disabled so they could easily get in and out of the building or arrangements would have been made for the disabled to have a taxi driver pick up some vouchers) I called Mr. Edy, mentioned in the article, about 3 years ago, to talk about these matters. He has yet to return my call. But, this is expected. Government bureaucrats prove everyday that they care nothing at all about giving the disabled any assistance, other than some military assistance, provided by the Federal taxpayers which locals get paid to dish out.

As Helen Keller, blind from birth, as Catherine Vasaloo (blind from birth, of this city); both have said, “There is no isolation like the isolation of blindness and no one really cares.” ...until they get there.