Series overview:
Anne's story is part of a series on the region's public transportation. Reporters will be riding buses to collect residents' perspectives. Do you use public transportation and want to be part of the series? Email newsroom@centralcurrent.org.
Anne Childress, a grants coordinator at Onondaga Community College, has a trapped nerve in her right leg, which affects the mobility in her hips and her back.
“I have a hard time going up steps, plus both standing up and sitting down,” she said.
Childress told Central Current accessibility features and accommodations for people with disabilities get mixed results. She likes the discounted fare of 50 cents, but noted that the driver on the Sy-76 Salt Springs Road route she takes to work every morning doesn’t accommodate for her mobility constraints.
“She never lowers the bus enough for me to get on easily. She refuses to put it down all the way,” Childress said. “I have to pull myself up onto the bus with the door rails.”
Delays and tardiness make Centro an inconvenient service, Childress added. Her bus from OCC to the transit hub on South Salina Street gets to her stop at the college at around 4:05 p.m. and she gets to her home on the East Side of Syracuse at around 5:30 p.m.
“The bus is always late,” she said.
Childress would have to wait until 5:40 p.m. for the next bus to the hub if she misses the 4:05 p.m. ride.
Last week, Childress waited for about half an hour at the hub for a Salt Springs Road bus that never came. She said she knew to take the Sy-62 route to Fayetteville/Manlius whenever there is a holdup with the Sy-76 route.
“When there is no bus, I Uber or Lyft,” she said. “The bus is too infrequent to rely on.”
Childress said the slack created by the infrequent service is a main reason why others in Central New York don’t ride the bus.
“It can’t be relied on,” she said. “People get tired of workers being late and most workers want to keep their jobs.”
The solution, Childress said, would be to increase the frequency of the service during rush hour in the morning and in the evening.
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