| Mobility Unlimited attempts to lift burden after Route 4's closure
When a bus route past his workplace closed earlier this month, Mark Towery took a week off the job just to plot how he would get around town. Wheelchair bound, Towery is relying on friends, co-workers and taxis while a local nonprofit agency readies a van for him to drive. The 33-year-old is just one in a group of disabled riders formerly reliant on Rogue Valley Transportation District's Route 4 that Mobility Unlimited can assist, said executive director Glory Cooper. "The services have been cut where they're most needed," Cooper said. A $1.2 million shortfall in RVTD's budget coupled with low ridership prompted the Sept. 1 closure of Route 4 past Rogue Valley Medical Center. RVTD's Valley Lift also was discontinued in that area because federal funding for the service is directly linked to the proximity of bus routes.
Travel Buddies help get John moving
JOHN Wilson never had the confidence to travel far from home-always worried he would get stuck in his wheelchair and wouldn't be able to get back to the East End because of inaccessible buses and Tube. So he kept to his Poplar neighbourhood, never venturing much further than a few blocks form his home in North Street. It wasn't much of a life. At 58, John has spent the last 18 years stuck in his wheelchair. Now City Hall has taken a 'step' further with its 'buddy squad' of travel assistants to advise those like John on how to get around. "It has changed my life because it's given me the confidence to get out and about," he points out. "Until I got tips from my travel assistant, I never knew exactly which areas were safe to use, so I stayed close to home. "But now there's no stopping me-it's a dream getting on the DLR.
A story of survival: Hope gives strength to family of one injured ...
WOODBURN, Ore. - On the wall in the basement bedroom Jared and Amy Nelson share - his hospital bed snug up against her quilt-covered queen - hangs this cross-stitched message: "The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time."
That simple, framed sentence holds a truth that Amy has learned to live in the year since a van full of Utah State University agriculture students returning from a field trip crashed near Tremonton.
Eight classmates and their instructor died Sept. 26, 2005. Jared Nelson and another student, Robbie Petersen, survived.
While Petersen is back at USU, Jared, who turns 23 on Sunday, spends his days in a wheelchair, being ferried to doctors and therapists from Portland to Salem, Ore.
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