Reply #108: True.

[tblue37]

I finally just got a car a month ago. I have been on foot for many years.

I am almost 56 and I often must use a cane (arthritis, plantar fasciitis). But everything is so far away. My doctor's office is 15 minutes away by car, and public transportation here, which is only 5 years old anyway, runs on a 1 1/2 hour schedule. With transfers and waits, you must take 2 to 4 hours to go anywhere. But the bus doesn't even go out to where my doctor is located. I have always had to beg rides from friends for a monthly visit I have to make for a shot.

And to get many tests (like mammograms, colonoscopies, etc.), you have to go to many different (and distant) parts of the city. I haven't been able to get to my mammogram appointments for 3 years! When I had a small stroke 2 years ago, a friend drove in from Overland Park (40 minutes away) to take me to the emergency room, because I can't afford an ambulance! (Cabs here cost $10 each way, no matter how short the run. I have never been able to afford that.)

Despite the limited bus service here, and the fact that many, many people must use it for work and other essentials, there are buttheads complaining about wasting taxpayer dollars on it. They can't understand that the taxes of people without cars are subsidizing their cars, their gas, their highways.