My name is Judy Jones, and I live in Sedro-Woolley in Skagit County. I am blind, due to retinopathy of prematurity. I am currently a white cane user, but I have also been a guide dog user. As blind people, my husband and I have been very independent.
I’ve been riding transit since 1979. Transit has allowed me to have a working career, to raise my kids, and to get where I need to and want to go. I’ve used combinations of paratransit and fixed route my whole life. Now that my kids are grown up and I’ve retired, I take mostly paratransit. I am the chair of the Skagit Transit Community Advisory Committee. I’m impassioned about transit because this is how I get around. This is what helps me do life.
I take paratransit to church, to go shopping, and to meet up with friends for coffee. I was in a “Gals Pals Group” for a while, which was 8 friends trying different cafes in the area, and I’d take paratransit there. I take it back and forth to CAC meetings. Though most of where I go is just to do leisure activities.
Think about it this way: I depend on transit. You depend on your car. Your car is convenient for you, but transit is a must for me. Whenever I have moved cities, the first call I make is to the transit agency to see if I will be able to live there. I like living in Sedro-Woolley, and whether our transit agency is going to receive funding or not is going to dictate how I live. If we don’t get our funding, my life choices could be taken away. Would you want your life choices taken away? If your community needed federal money in order for you to be able to drive your car and it didn’t get that money, so your ability to drive your car would be taken away, what would you think about that?
Our agency could definitely use funding. They were not able to get all the grant funding that they were hoping for, and we do unfortunately have several fixed route cancellations or decreased frequency several times a week simply because of lack of drivers. Instead of a bus coming every hour, it’ll come every two hours, which just isn’t reliable. People need assurance that they can get to work and other scheduled activities. Skagit Transit is putting the effort into trying to bring drivers in through training, but we just frankly need more money.