BY KEITH BENMAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
kbenman@nwitimes.com
GARY | Louis Wilson's workday begins at 5:35 a.m. outside a darkened diner at a crossroad on Gary's west side. It ends 13 hours later at the same crossroad.
In between, the 23-year-old spends eight hours at his $7.50-an-hour job at Target in Hobart. He spends five hours waiting at stops and traveling to and from the store on Gary Public Transportation Corp. buses.
That's on a good day. His second day of work at Target in November was not good. That's when the last bus of three he takes broke down, and he walked two miles on the shoulder along the six lanes of U.S. 30 and under the Interstate 65 overpass to get to work on time.
Then there are the days when he works until 9 p.m. and walks the last two miles home because the last bus has stopped running. On others, he travels five hours to work for four. On Sundays, he has to pay someone $10 to get him to work and back because buses don't run on Sundays.
"At first I told them I couldn't work on Sunday," Wilson said. "But how can you tell your boss you can't work?"
'Where the jobs are at'
Wilson's 14-mile trip by bus, car or on foot takes him through three municipalities that are strikingly different in incomes, industry and racial makeup.
Hundreds every day make the $2 bus trip from declining northern cities that offer few opportunities for entry-level jobs to the solid belt of restaurants, strip malls, luxury outlets and the Westfield Southlake mall along U.S. 30.
Some journey to the half-dozen vocational colleges along the same highway.
"If I could find a job somewhere closer I would," said Willie Johnson, as he waited at 9 p.m. for the last South Broadway Express bus on a Thursday night at Gary's Metro Center. "But it's where the jobs are at."
The 9-mile trip from the Metro Center to U.S. 30 illustrates the racial divide that limits economic opportunity for thousands in Northwest Indiana.
Johnson and Wilson start off their trip in a city that is 84 percent African-American, according to the most recent U.S. census figures. In Merrillville, where Johnson works, 23 percent of the population is African-American. In Hobart, where Wilson works, the figure is just 1.4 percent. In Crown Point, the farthest south any GPTC bus goes, it also is 1.4 percent.
Median household incomes in Merrillville, Hobart and Crown Point are approximately twice as much as the $25,496 median the census reports for Gary.
Fare box runs low
The infrequent bus service on some routes keeps Wilson and others from being available on short notice if called in to work. It also prevents them from taking jobs at places off of bus routes, like Menards home supply center on Mississippi Street, in Merrillville, which pays more than many stores.
More than a dozen bus riders interviewed over the last month said there would be better job opportunities for them if buses ran more frequently, on time, on Sundays, operated more hours and went farther into the suburbs.
But the three cities that operate fixed-route bus service struggle mightily to hold onto the service they have now. GPTC has been forced to cut out some routes and sharply limit how often buses run on others.
Gary taxpayers shelled out $2.94 million in 2004 to keep buses running. That figure dropped to $2.4 million in 2005 and may drop further this year because of the city's declining tax base. GPTC takes in almost $1 million in fares.
Suburban towns and cities pay nothing for GPTC service, other than the fares residents pay when they ride. The two buses to the suburbs carry about 25 percent of all GPTC riders.
For Hammond Transit System, which runs to Highland and Munster, the funding situation is the same. Neither town pays Hammond anything. The city of Whiting, which is also served by Hammond Transit, pays $10,000 per year.
Night shift begins early
In some cases, the bus systems fight hostility, both veiled and outright, from residents, businesses and political leaders in suburban communities.
Johnson gets off the Broadway Express on a dusty shoulder at a service road behind a Speedway gas station on U.S. 30. That bus once stopped in front of a Kmart store in a plaza nearby -- before GPTC was disinvited from that stop.
Johnson says he's lucky. It's only a three or four block walk to the Meijer store where he works.
"That ain't bad," he said of his jaunt in the dark.
Others who get off there wait in a small strip mall alley for the U.S. 30 Circular bus, which runs east into Hobart.
Also waiting at the Metro Center that night was Samantha Hill, a 31-year-old certified nurse assistant. Bundled up in a long brown winter coat, she patiently read a paperback as soul tunes played over the public address system.
The last Broadway Express heads south at 9:10 p.m., so she had left home at 8 p.m. to catch a bus to the Metro Center. Add in an eight-hour nursing home shift and the trip home and it is nearly a 12-hour night for Hill.
If you live in Gary, you don't have much choice.
"If you want a better work environment and better pay, you have to work somewhere else," she said,
April Smith, 20, feels she gets to her medical assistant classes at Kaplan College in a reasonable amount of time, under an hour when the buses are on time. It's the stops without sidewalks or shelters that are the problem.
She gets off behind the same Speedway as Johnson, only just as the sun is coming up in the morning. Then she is dropped by the U.S. 30 Circular at another Speedway at the corner of U.S. 30 and Colorado Street.
Crossing that intersection, where 12 lanes of traffic come together on a highway rated as one of Indiana's most dangerous, is like taking your life in your hands.
"It's just not good," she said.