Labor and disability advocates at odds over future of Chicago-area paratransit

Labor and disability advocates at odds over future of Chicago-area paratransit – Chicago Tribune/Yahoo

During the spring legislative session, the Teamsters hoped to win language that would have limited the use of rideshares for paratransit within transit reform legislation mostly focused on averting the fiscal cliff and restructuring the Chicago area’s regional transit governing body. But the parties failed to come to an agreement relating to paratransit. And though legislators introduced two different transit reform bills, lawmakers failed to pa…

Labor and disability advocates at odds over future of Chicago-area paratransit

Cathleen O’Brien’s Logan Square apartment is across the street from the California Blue Line station, close enough that she can hear the trains go by. But O’Brien uses a wheelchair, and the California station isn’t accessible. She can’t drive. So to get to her work as a therapist — she has two jobs, one at a substance use clinic in Lawndale, and one working with kids on the South Side — O’Brien takes an Uber. She does so using a subsidized progr…