The Center Park Bus Next Chapter

RantWoman here celebrates the next chapter in the evolution of the Center park Bus.

RantWoman recommends readers use your search engines to find many strands of history. This post celebrates the arrival of the new vehicle, the retirement of two falling apart vehicles, , the launch of dispatch service through Solid Ground, and renewed opportunities for RantWoman's many wheelchair-using neighbors to go to the mall together if they want to.

First a shout-out to RantWoman's neighbor Vanessa Harris seen here with civil rights icon King County Councilmember Larry Gossett. Vanessa reached out to County and City council members. She coordinated getting everyone to show up to multiple meetings with different public officials, appearances at meetings. She even got RantWoman motivated to read the King County Auditor's report about ACCESS paratransit services, grist for another post entirely.

RantWoman also sends a hearty shout out to King County Council Members Rod Demboski and Claudia Balducci. One of the Center Park bus meetings just involved young staff from both offices and RantWoman's neighbors telling stories about details of their lives: getting groceries. why going uphill in the rain on a steep slope in a manual wheelchair is hard, why no one should take for granted a sense of direction, and many other details.

To be honest RantWoman was impatient at first and realized she needed just to shut up and let her neighbors tell their stories. RantWoman could tell from the questions and from many conversational digressions that much learning was occurring.

For government video junkies here are the videos of every King County Council 4th Monday Public Comment that Center Park residents attended.

(For the record: No, RantWoman did not do this with JAWS. RantWoman spent precious eyeball time doing it visually with Zoomtext.)

King County Council Public Comment Video July 2017

King County Council Public Comment Video September 2017

Testimony from RantWoman's neighbors and RantWoman herself is fairly early in the video.

RantWoman is especially proud of her testimony in the September 25 video: RantWoman had just spent all weekend at the Age Friendly Seattle hackathon and had topical insights to share. RantWoman said something interesting just as the two-minute bell was sounding and one of the council members invited RantWoman to continue. RantWoman thanks Council for permitting her almost 3.5 minutes of testimony.




Photo Op with the brand new bus