VOICEOVER: To get us started. Steve Reinardy on Metro Mobility issues.
STEVE REINARDY: Hello, my name is Steve Reinardy. I live in Inver Grove Heights. I am a white male. I go by he or him. My hair is brown. I have green eyes. And I wear a black shirt with colored stripes. I do talk slower than others, so I can be understood better.
I am legally visually impaired and I cannot drive. It has been that way since I was very young. I do rely on services for transportation to get me around. I mainly take Metro Mobility, which has its challenges. They are state-funded, and are short-staffed, and use outdated tech. It has been that way for many years.
Metro Mobility, however, is a door-to-door service, but it is not always reliable. There have been many times when my Metro Mobility rides were very late, did not come at all, or I was on the Metro bus for many hours, and this is when it’s not weather-related.
I work about 60 miles from my home. There are times, it takes just under two hours to take me 60 miles from my home to work. I understand if things go a certain way occasionally, but this happens to me and many others several times a month. I like the service in concept, just not in a practice. I just want to get to my work, most or all of the time, so I can pay for what I need and want.
We have a good foundation here in the Metro area for transportation. If we can just improve it a bit more, you will have an expanded workforce to fill in the gaps in employment that we need right now. Please do not take that away or limit it. The disability community is a huge, mostly untapped resource of good, loyal, hard-working people that we cannot afford to ignore. Thank you for your time.