On a warm October morning in northeastern Wisconsin, Steve Malick criss-crosses Brown County in a gray minivan. Orange-red foliage attracts the gaze of passengers as overnight rain gives way to clear skies.
A smart tablet guides Maricque along the route. The dispatcher will occasionally send a radio requesting another pickup and add it to the queue when they have time.
“This first man had heart surgery and is currently in rehab,” Malick says, reading the passenger manifest.
Maricque, 66, is a volunteer driver for the non-profit Curative Connections. The organization provides services such as transporting people with disabilities and the elderly to medical facilities and other important stops. One-way fare within the service area, including Green Bay and surrounding communities, is her $4.
This non-profit organization is part of Brown County’s disconnected transit system for non-drivers. This includes Green Bay Metro’s traditional bus service and door-to-door service within the metro area.
These services, like much of Wisconsin, will become more important as the population of Brown County becomes increasingly older and less mobile. However, many challenges threaten its survival.
Curative Connections lost about half of the drivers who volunteered before the pandemic. The need to pay for additional drivers and inflation are straining nonprofit budgets and forcing them to cut back on services.
Green Bay Metro, like Wisconsin’s public transit system, is facing declining passenger numbers and revenues, and it’s only going to get worse as remote work options expand during the pandemic. In August 2020, the transit system launched an on-demand micro-transit service aimed at filling the gap in fixed route services. This new service complements existing paratransit programs for residents with transportation disabilities.
As traditional bus services struggle, advocates for the disabled welcome on-demand options, but say they fall short of meeting the needs of Wisconsins who don’t drive.
An influx of government pandemic aid should help stabilize the Green Bay Metro system, but it will only be temporary, officials say.
Moving Wisconsin in Gray
Maricque has lived in Brown County all her life. After retiring from his Bellin Health Foundation in October 2021, he immediately volunteered to run his Curative Connections.
Maricque left the Curative Connections office around noon Monday and immediately parked in the driveway of the first passenger. Todd Destiche slips into the backseat on the passenger side.
Destiche said his wife used to take him to cardiac rehab, but now back problems limit her range of motion. Destiché explains that he cannot drive due to heart problems, but he is happy with Curative Connections’ service.
“They are doing a great job,” he says. You can’t ask for better. (The driver) will drop you off at the door and pick you up at the door. ”
Destiché stops.
“And most of them are nice people,” he jokes.
As a retiree, Destiche is a growing population in Brown County and will likely need help getting to doctor’s appointments, work, or social events.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of people 65 and older in Brown County will exceed 42,000 in 2021, an increase of about 50% from 2010.
The trend is spreading across Wisconsin as baby boomers age and birth rates remain low. The state administration said her population of more than 65 people in Wisconsin will grow by nearly half a million by 2040, up from 14% in 2010 and nearly a quarter of the total population. I expect. This is based on the agency’s latest analysis of 2013 Census data. .
Nearby family members can shuttle around the elderly, but that’s not the case for everyone.
“A lot of the older people in the area have kids moving out these days and they don’t have anyone to take them where they need to go,” says Maricque.
unhealthy transport barrier
At one stop Malick ran out to meet Kathy Koch at the front door.
Grabbing a walker, the 79-year-old man descends the entrance porch ramp. Malik helps her into the backseat of the van.
Koch is on his way to the dentist, which is just a 10-minute drive away. Without specialized means of transport, you face a variety of logistical hurdles. Curative Connections is essentially “the only way I can get around it,” she says.
“I need someone to help me, but my husband has been dead for a while. All my children are working and all my grandchildren are working, so it’s hard to ask them,” she said. explains.
Some young people with disabilities use Curative Connections as a way to commute, but medical transportation is one of the biggest gaps Curative Connections fills.
In 2017, 5.8 million Americans lost access to healthcare due to lack of access to reliable transportation, according to an analysis of National Health Interview Survey data. Older people, people with chronic diseases and disabilities, women, and people of color faced the highest transportation burdens.
These barriers can exacerbate the psychological effects of chronic illness, long-term health, and isolation.
Distancing policies reduced COVID-19 transmission among vulnerable older adults early in the pandemic, but exacerbated feelings of isolation. And even before COVID-19, about a quarter of older Americans were considered socially isolated, increasing their risk of loneliness and related health problems.
Many of Malick’s passengers, like Koch, struggle to leave their homes without help. Rides may offer face-to-face interactions for one week only.
“I love human contact,” says Koch as Maricque parks near the dentist’s door and helps her out of the van. “It doesn’t happen very often.”
Financing, workforce hurdles
According to the Brown County Senior and Disabled Resource Center, only a handful of local organizations offer specialized transportation for seniors and people with disabilities.
These services face many challenges.
As of late October, Curative Connections’ volunteer drivers had dwindled to about 52, about half the total number before the pandemic, said Tina Whetung, the nonprofit’s transportation director. increase. She says many volunteers who left at the start of the pandemic never returned.
As a result, Whetung estimates that in 2022 it offered 30% fewer ride-hailing services than it did in 2019.
To offset the decline in volunteers, Curative Connections hired new paid drivers. Those costs and higher gasoline prices have created a budget shortfall of $40,000, Whetung said. The nonprofit responded by soliciting new donations, raising fees from $3 he said to $4, and cutting staff.
Still, Whetung expected the organization to be “in a pinch” in 2022.
Green Bay Metro’s existing paratransit and new microtransit services will function similarly to Curative Connections. Passengers can call in advance and be picked up at a specific location instead of the bus stop.
The service aims to fill the gap after traditional bus ridership in Green Bay fell by more than 60% in the last two years, from about 1.3 million in 2019 to about 495,000 in 2021. and But the range is limited, says Green Bay Metro Transit Director Patty Kiwis.
“One of the things we always want to do is scale our services and reach areas that we can’t,” she says. “This is a battle with traditional fixed-route systems.
As part of that shift, Green Bay Metro plans to reduce service hours Monday through Saturday in 2023. Green Bay Metro’s micro-transit service, ‘GBM On Demand’, will be expanded to cover that gap.
Solutions for non-drivers
Government-run on-demand services can be useful in certain circumstances, but remain incomplete, says Public Policy Analyst and Legislative Liaison for the Wisconsin Commission on Developmental Disabilities and State Non-Driver Advisory Board Co-Chair Tamara Jackson said..
“There’s no silver bullet here. There are a lot of places trying to do on-demand service, and I think it solves some of the challenges people have,” she says. “But it doesn’t always solve some of the local and land-use planning challenges that impact beyond drivers.”
Some passengers struggle with affordability and scheduling, says Jackson. Also, many on-demand services struggle in rural areas and operate on a limited scale.
Green Bay Metro’s on-demand service operates at limited times and mostly within the boundaries of the bus area. Curative Connections operates throughout Brown County, but its focus is in and around Green Bay. Volunteers are being recruited to further improve services in rural areas, Whetung said.
Decrease in bus ridership and revenue
Wisconsin’s rural transportation system faces a difficult financial future.
Passengers on the state’s nine largest subway transit systems, including Green Bay, plummeted from 48.5 million in 2019 to 22.6 million in 2021.
Transport officials blame the pandemic largely for the decline, but passenger numbers began falling more than a decade ago. In 2007, nine systems made him 72 million rides, according to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Falling gas prices, a booming economy, the rise of app-based ridesharing, reduced transit services, and a shift to working from home have reduced passenger numbers, according to a 2021 Wisconsin Department of Law and Finance report. .
Meanwhile, states are reducing their investment in local transportation projects. Excluding special funds for paratransit and tribal transit, the state will spend about $72 million in 2022 on helping mass transit operations. This is nearly 40% less than he is in 2021. This is his lowest funding level in over a decade.
The state has separate pools for transportation for seniors and people with disabilities. The largest pool flows to county government. At $16 million, it is higher than a decade ago ($13.6 million), but has stagnated since 2019.
Kiewiz said new federal infrastructure funding and pandemic support have closed some gaps. But it’s not a perfect fix.
“It’s really kind of a lump sum. What are we going to do in a few years?”
“I can see the effect”
Maricque sits in Curative Connections’ main office, with other volunteers and staff buzzing around him. He considers himself more than just a driver.
“Every time I drive to an individual I serve, I feel the impact,” he says.
His goal of serving the community guided his previous work and inspired him to volunteer at Curative Connections just days after retiring.
“There are life lessons to be learned from older people,” he says. “It’s very fulfilling for me to understand their story and be able to help them live as normal a life as possible.”
The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media, University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism and mass communications. All work created, published, posted or distributed by Wisconsin Watch does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of his UW-Madison or its affiliates.
