MTA Strike Taking a Heavy Toll on Elderly, Disabled

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority strike entered its second workweek Monday, and nowhere has the strike had more devastating consequences than among transit-dependent elderly and disabled riders.

Whether it’s getting to work, making a physicians’ appointment or just catching up with grocery shopping, the MTA’s 81,000 regular elderly, blind and disabled bus and rail passengers are facing monumental problems getting around.

Blind students at the Braille Institute in east Hollywood are walking across town with guide dogs. Bertha Poole, a quadriplegic Long Beach woman, spent a weekend in bed because her transit-dependent home care attendant couldn’t get to her house to get her up. Suzanne Paggi has been weaving in and out of traffic in the San Fernando Valley in her electric wheelchair, traveling seven miles each way to her job.

Despite the misery, there appears to be no end in sight for the 11-day-old strike.

MTA management and the drivers union, along with state mediators, met Monday at the Pasadena Hilton. Operating under a news blackout, the two sides seemed to be mostly engaged in one-on-one discussions. Little progress was reported.

The shutdown of MTA rail and bus operations is having an ever-deepening impact on the system’s 450,000 weekday riders.

Fears are that the strike’s impact will grow even worse. Already it has cost transit-dependent workers jobs and hurt businesses along heavily traveled bus routes. County health centers and community free clinics report that 30% or more of their patients are missing appointments. Students at public schools and community colleges are missing classes or showing up late.

The aged, blind and disabled have relied on public transit here in increasing numbers since the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 and federal mandates gave them easier access to buses and trains so they could reach jobs and recreation, among other things.

Now the strike has slammed the door to that world for some of the disabled--or at least it has created much more work for those least able to cover the distance to stores, workplaces and physician’s offices.

“This is a population that obviously depends on public transportation,” said attorney Dan Tokaji, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “Many of them are not able to drive or can’t afford cars. For them, public transportation is not a luxury but a necessity.”

Tokaji was one of the attorneys who forced the MTA into settling a lawsuit seeking to guarantee bus access to passengers who use wheelchairs or are assisted by other means. Wheelchair lifts and low-floor buses were among the signs of progress for the disabled.

Then came the strike, and for some riders, it was like a return to the years when public transit presented huge barriers to the disabled.

Cynde Soto, a quadriplegic who lives in Long Beach, is a longtime activist for the disabled who remembers lobbying for improved services during the 1970s and meeting heavy resistance from government transportation agencies.

“They told us handicapped people didn’t ride the bus,” she recalled. “Of course they don’t ride the bus, we told them. That’s because they can’t get on the bus.”

Although Long Beach city buses are running, the shock waves of the MTA strike are reaching the port city.

Bertha Poole said she had to stay in bed the first weekend of the strike because her home care attendant, who lives in Compton, had no way of getting to her house.

Lying in bed brought back feelings she hadn’t had for a long time, she said. “It was so confining. Very physically draining,” she said. “Cabin fever sets in.”

During the week, Poole, who depends on a wheelchair, manages to get around well enough to attend Long Beach City College. But on weekends, her regular attendant is off. Last weekend, she said, her weekday attendant agreed to come in on Saturday, and her daughter helped on Sunday.

For Long Beach resident Ben Rockwell, who also must use a wheelchair, the strike has meant an end to the affordable frozen dinners he shopped for at a new Albertson’s next to the MTA’s Blue Line Willow Station. The Albertson’s, a little over a year old, was planned with the expectation of heavy passenger traffic on the Blue Line. With the Blue Line shut down, Rockwell has had to return to the more expensive, limited offerings at markets in his downtown Long Beach neighborhood.

Rockwell said closure of the Blue Line also shut off his opportunities to see friends in Los Angeles.

Paggi, who works at an independent living center in Van Nuys, has been getting to and from work and her home in Reseda by taking her electric wheelchair onto busy streets in the Valley. She must ride in the street because not all sidewalks in the Valley are accessible to wheelchairs.

She said she knows it’s dangerous, and that it’s wearing out her wheelchair, but getting to work is a high priority.

She said it takes her an hour and a half each way.

“It takes a lot of energy out of me,” said Paggi, who has cerebral palsy. But with the buses not running, she said, she has no other way of getting to work.

There is a major transportation service in the county for the disabled, Access Services, but the program is limited. Generally, those with disabilities who live near bus lines are excluded if they can use public transportation. With the strike, Access Services said its calls are up 20%.

Ernest Tabarez, 43, is blind. He works and takes classes at the Braille Institute. But he lives close by, so he can take another special shuttle service for the disabled, CityRide. But CityRide is limited geographically, and other Braille Institute students and teachers must come from long distances.

Tabarez said one blind student walks to the east Hollywood campus from Chinatown. A blind teacher from Torrance takes the Torrance Transit bus to Washington Boulevard and Grand Avenue downtown, then walks the rest of the way, about seven miles, with his yellow Labrador guide dog.

“They are becoming very good in their mobility skills,” Tabarez said. “It seems like everyone is determined to try to carry out what they normally do. But it may become too big a problem.”

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Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this story.