Bus riders find strike makes for tiring routine
| • | Bus talks yield new proposals, no agreement |
| • | Drive Time: Drivers helped prevent gridlock when strike began |
| • | Getting around without TheBus: Information you can use |
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
The bus strike is forcing 'Ewa Beach resident Steve Kelsey to make three or more roundtrips into Honolulu five days a week since the bus strike began on Aug. 26 — even though he works in Kapolei.
"It's very difficult," said Candace Kelsey, his wife, who used to take the bus before the strike. "It would be nice to get back into our regular routine."
• How difficult has it been for you to get around O'ahu without bus service and how has your life been altered? Please e-mail us at hawaii@honoluluadvertiser.com with your name, phone number and story.
Regular bus riders and other commuters from all parts of the island have stories to tell about how the strike, entering its fifth week today, has affected them and how they are trying to cope with it. O'ahu Transit Services, which operates TheBus, estimates that it provides 240,000 rides a day.
Share your story
Steve Kelsey leaves the house at 5:45 a.m. to get Candace to her job as an office manager at the State Capitol, and then drives back to Kapolei Hale where he works in the city's recycling office. After he finishes work in the afternoon, he goes home to pick up his son, drops him off at his job in Waikiki and picks up Candace for the trip home. The father then heads back into town to pick up the son when he finishes work around 10:30 or 11 p.m.
The son had a car but it was wrecked recently in an accident. The family thought about replacing that second car, Candace Kelsey said, but "financially, that's not really feasible right now."
The situation has also been troublesome for Waikiki resident Ellie Ferri and her partner, Charlie Doremus. Both suffer from mild cerebral palsy and are legally blind. The two qualify to use the city's Handi-Van service, which continues to operate, but Ferri said they are reluctant to use a service that people more disadvantaged than they are depend on.
Besides, Doremus said, "we're independent, spur-of-the-moment kind of people" who dislike needing to call 24 hours in advance for a ride, as is required for the Handi-Van.
The couple moved to Hawai'i from California nearly a decade ago in large part because of the impressive bus system here. Doremus said, however, that a protracted strike could force the two to move away.
"We feel like prisoners in our own home," Ferri said. "We live in a very small condo, and we both recently had major surgeries."
She said that Doremus, who has had a hip replacement and ankle surgery, had to use his manual wheelchair to get to Ala Moana Center to fix a shoe.
Sharon Howard, a single mother of three who lives in Wahiawa and rode the TheBus daily, is scouring the classified pages in the newspaper after deciding the time has come to buy a car. An activation assurance representative for a telecommunications company in downtown Honolulu, Howard has been getting by through the graciousness of co-workers.
It has developed into a pattern where one picks her up on the way to work and another drops her off on the way home. She has paid gasoline money to each.
But Howard said she worries about what will happen when her three kids, all students at Wahiawa Elementary School, go on intersession break next week. While they manage walking to school now, she needs to find a way to get them to and from the Mililani YMCA, where they are in programs.
"I haven't figured out what we're going to do," she said.
Howard said the strike is taking a financial and personal toll. When TheBus was running, "I would be home just in time to get my kids (from a sitter) and walk home." Instead, she has to pay the sitter to spend more time with her children, and it means less time for her to spend with them.
"This has changed my life tremendously," she said.
Downtown resident Lynne Matusow's life has also changed. The community activist gets a ride from a friend for a weekly appointment to Kaimuki on Mondays but needs to walk to another engagement in McCully on Thursdays. "I'm supposed to be doing that anyway," she said of her increased exercise regimen.
Like other bus riders, Matusow grows more frustrated each day the buses stay out. "The federal mediator should lock both sides in a room with no food or water and not let them come until they settle this," she said.
Ferri said that the union should accept the company's proposal to allow employees to return to work while negotiations continue. "That way, everybody's at a happy medium," she said.
Union officials, however, say that gives the employer no incentive to settle the strike. "It takes the urgency completely out of the negotiations," said Don Owens, Teamster spokesman. "The city relaxes, some of our union members may also relax and the public relaxes."
Renwick "Joe" Tassill said he testified in support of drivers at the City Council hearing and urged Council members to increase fares for riders like himself. During the strike, Tassill has been riding the city's makeshift van service to get around from his home near Queen's Medical Center to his cultural tour guide job in Waikiki.
Tassill said he worries about the bus drivers and their families as the strike wears on. "Everybody's continuing to exist," Tassill said of a Honolulu without TheBus. "But it's hard to exist on $200 a week," he said, referring to the amount striking workers are getting in benefits.
Tassill said he has a greater worry. "They've got to get back and running because it's hurting the entire state's economy because of the trickle-down effect," he said.
Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.
