Asheville, NC – My name is Harvey Harold, and I live in Asheville, North Carolina. I grew up in Hickory, North Carolina, an hour and forty minutes down I-40 from Asheville, but ended up in Asheville by way of Virginia. After a really dark time in my life, including a month-long program up in Galax, Virginia, I came to the Veterans Quarters on Tunnel Road. The program up there, as well as the other programs available in Asheville, helped put my feet on solid ground and find myself. I found God, found a church, and people that were willing to help me after the VA. Coming to Asheville really saved my life.
The VA is also where my transit journey started in Asheville. When I first got to Asheville, I would take the bus to the VA hospital, to my classes, back to my housing. But the bus didn’t come all the way to the VA hospital. Instead, it would stop about a quarter-mile walk away from the VA hospital, and one day I even waited over two hours for the bus. One of my instructors helped me find out who was responsible for the bus out to the VA, and I started advocating for my fellow veterans who used walkers and found it difficult to get all the way to the bus stop. It turned out that there was a fault in the system, and they suggested I apply to join the transit committee. So for the last eight years, I’ve been a member of the Asheville Transit Committee.
I get a bit emotional about transit because I love transit and I’ve met a lot of people on transit. I’m a people person and I care about why people are feeling badly, why they can’t get where they’re going, and what might make them feel better. Transit gets people where they need to go, whether that’s the doctor’s office, grocery store, dentist, or even the park to clear their head. A lot of people don’t have a car, a bike, or a friend to get them there, but transit bridges that gap. That’s what transit’s all about: people and destinations.
And you meet a lot of very interesting people on the bus. The drivers are very professional and knowledgeable about the positions they hold, with happy attitudes; they’re just good down-to-earth people. Some of the passengers will tell you stories that are mind-boggling, some of them will make you laugh until you cry, and a lot of them will tell you about their journey. The homeless folks who ride the bus can touch your heart in a very special way when they tell you their personal stories about where they’ve been, how they got where they are now, and where they’re trying to go today.
But there is always room for improvement for transit too. Public transit needs to be there for the people to get from destination to destination, because not everybody has the ability to purchase a car, and in some cities public transit is even better than having a car, and it’s the pulse of the city. The pulse of the city needs to listen to the citizens, to their needs and demands, because we’re the ones that elect them.