A smaller world for people with disabilities during the transit strike

This story was published on April 6. You can find our latest story here.

The bus is more than a way to get from point A to point B for Amy and Sylvia Dirks.

Amy is a 33-year-old woman who lives with a disability in Abbotsford. Her mother, Sylvia, has seen firsthand the vital service that HandyDart, as well as standard public transit routes, provide for people with disabilities and seniors in the community.

“It broadens her world,” Sylvia said. “It's really, really important.”

But the buses aren’t running in Abbotsford—and haven’t been for weeks.

The Fraser Valley transit strike shut down buses and many HandyDart services throughout the valley on Monday, March 20. Drivers are asking for pensions, better wages, and better working conditions from their employer, First Transit.

HandyDart is still running for “medically necessary” services, which largely means medical appointments alone. But Sylvia says a lack of public transit for vulnerable people like her daughter is affecting everyone and that necessity, in this case, is defined too narrowly.

On the bus

Amy attends an adult day program. There, with other participants who’ve become friends over the years and staff who support them, she volunteers and does different activities in the community. The programs improve physical and mental health in huge ways, Sylvia said. There’s a daily fee, but most years Amy covers that herself with a paper route.

Amy has used HandyDart to get to and from the program since 2009. She can take transit on her own with the support that HandyDart provides: the drivers know her and help her and other users that need similar support get where they’re going.

“They are absolutely doing more than driving the bus,” Sylvia said.

At the day program, staff provide the support needed to use regular bus routes. On public transit with the help of staff members the world opens up for Amy and the friends she’s made in the program. Events, jobs, activities, and volunteer opportunities are suddenly within reach, and using the bus helps participants learn more independence.

Without the buses running, their world gets smaller.

Some participants regularly use the city bus to get to various day programs in the city, and can’t attend if it isn’t running. Others don’t have public transit options outside HandyDart, and arranging rides is left up to participants’ families. Though Sylvia can drive Amy some days, she can’t on others.

Amy is lucky. Her day program has been arranging rides to and from the centre with workers while the bus services have stopped. But that isn’t the case for all programs in the city. And private transit, Sylvia said, is getting expensive.

“More of the money from the day program goes to pay for transportation... It's eating up their transportation budget.”

The programs do not have large budgets. Money spent on driving participants to and from the program could be spent on transportation elsewhere. As a result, participants might not be able to get to the same activities.

Vital programs and chain reactions

HandyDart is only driving people to “essential” medical appointments during the strike. Day programs aren’t considered essential. But Sylvia thinks HandyDart service specifically (and other bus routes to a slightly lesser extent) is necessary no matter the destination. She says ignoring those needs will affect everyone.

She’s not alone in suggesting transit is more important than currently defined. Seniors who rely on HandyDart have missed specialist appointments that aren’t considered essential. Employees who take transit to work are losing money, missing shifts, and getting fired. Students who depend on buses are missing classes and exams.

When Amy or other people with disabilities can’t reach their programs, they’re often stuck at home.

“It's affecting their mental health, their physical health, their friendships,” Sylvia said. “It's affecting their ability to feel like a contributing member of society, because they are contributing in their own ways.”

The sense of contribution and belonging is vital to mental health for Amy and other participants—just like it is for everyone else.

“When they don't have something to do, they're more likely to deal with mental health issues—or mental health issues become more challenging. Amy gets more anxious,” Sylvia said.

There are also farther-reaching effects when someone with a disability who needs care can’t reach the services they use regularly.

“It's affecting families who can't go to work because their family member needs to be supported. There's a chain reaction that happens,” she said. “I just feel really, really strongly that if we're not taking care of the most vulnerable, the effect goes up the chain.”

That effect, though, is felt hardest at the end of that chain. And that, she said, is where the attention should be.

“I believe strongly that we need to take care of the most vulnerable because if we're not taking care of them, we’re missing humanity.”