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How Rural Nondrivers Travel Further, Pay More, & Spend More Time Searching for Essential Services · nondriver

• Alex: Most people in a lot of these communities run unchallenged. And so, you know, people definitely need to go out and run because it will at worst cases, you're the advocate there who's who knows the constituents and will voice that to the official higher than you. And that creates more of a sense of urgency whenever you have a council member or an a judge in a town saying, Hey. I got a problem here in my town where I my people can't get to work and I need your help fixing it. Devin: Welcome to nondriver. Anna: Real stories of navigating our world from people who can't drive. Devin: I'm Devin Silvernail. Alex: No. Anna: And I'm Anna Zivarts Devin: And today we have another really exciting guest. Today we have Alex Casper. Alex grew up in Philadelphia and Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, now living in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Alex is a non-driver due to various disabilities. Alex has served in elected office on two occasions and formerly was a member of the Reimagined Philadelphia Steering Committee, helping to draft their comprehensive plan. Alex moved to rural Pennsylvania after being hit by a car in twenty twenty four. and I would say Alex is our first person who has been in elected office on the show. So we're really excited to talk to you today. Thanks for having me. Anna: Alex, it's good to have you here with us this morning. Thanks so much for taking time. I wanna start with just sort of the trajectory of your life as a non driver. Do you wanna give us a a brief history of of how you became a non driver and how it's impacted how it's impacted your life? Alex: Never learned how to drive when I was 16. That was so that was never a part of my experience growing up. my siblings did, but I never took the opportunity to learn when I was 16. I just rode my bike or I would be driven to work. And eventually, around like 17, I was diagnosed with keratoconus. And I kind of made a decision at that point. Well, I can just live in the city. I'm from Philadelphia originally. I can just live in the city and ride a bus. There's buses that drive most places. I don't if I'm gonna have a condition where my vision's going to deteriorate over time, my dad went blind in his eye from keratoconus. and he's losing his vision again after a corneaus transplant. It's just if with you know, the current the conditions of that have made me decide that, you know, driving might not be the best option for me safety-wise. And eventually I started actually having seizures when I was 19 years old. I started going to the emergency room with seizures. And at that point, it was like, well, I kind of made a good decision never investing in a car. at that point, disability's kind of gotten the way of me ever taking that opportunity to learn. And so instead I've been you know, riding the bus where I can ride the bus where there's a bus that goes to it. There is service disconnection. I grew up in Gilbertsville for most of my childhood and there was not a bus service in Gilbertsville until I was an adult. the Potstown area transit authority part started providing pup public transit services, I believe in 2016 or 2017, for their Orange Line that would go to Gilbertsville from Pottstown. and so before I would r often ride the SEPTA services that were in Potstown, or I'd ride my bike down to the septa services in Potstown. until a time when I wasn't comfortable riding the bike anymore. eventually I started living in Philadelphia again for college and and spent my adult life there in coff in Philadelphia until I got run over by a car in twenty twenty four. and in December of that year I found myself in in Bradford riding public transit in the most rural part of the state to be able to get health care, to be able to take care of myself with my injuries and different disabilities that I have. I have to I've been to over 10% of the counties in Pennsylvania for healthcare in the past two years, riding paratransit and shared ride services to get to them. my I'm very fortunate that my region has been subsidized by the federal and state government for a very long time. it's the oldest subsidized transit authority in a rural community in the United States. We've had public transit here since 1976 at Bradford. That's been subsidized by the federal and the state government. And this area has actually had public transit even further before then. It's had public transit since eight the 1870s. and so this is a very historic regional area f rural area for public transit across the country. And so I'm fortunate I ended up over here when I needed to find public housing and find some stability for myself with my injuries and disabilities. In in two weeks I'm gonna have a week where I go to Onlyan on Monday, I go to Dubois on Tuesday, I go to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, and Only in again on Friday. so I'm going out of state j to New York using public transit services as a non driver to be able to make ends meet, get physical therapy to get immunotherapies to got to go see cornea surgeon on down in Pittsburgh and 'cause that's the closest one. It's like four hours away from me. and so the because of the rural healthcare shortage in my area, there's a lot of a lot of travel and I moved to Bradford a year before the hospital closed. And so There was a hospital when I moved here and now there's not a hospital. So my tr public transit services are taking me further away for a lot of care than I used to. Anna: Yeah, I wanna ask you about I mean when we chatted I think the first time you were sharing about, you know, being in Philly and then, you know, being hit by a car and not being able to afford rent in Philadelphia anymore and looking for somewhere where there was more affordable housing and and sort of that intersection of affordable housing, reliable transit, public transit, and then healthcare and and you pick Bradford 'cause it sort of checked all those boxes. and now that's changed with the loss of of the rural hospital. But can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, that that search for a place where you could get your needs met and and and afford rent. Alex: Philadelphia is the most expensive city in the country for a minimum wage earner to live. It when it tried to increase its minimum wage, Philadelphia was cut off by its state government saying no, that municipalities don't have that authority to that the state preempts that authority to increase the wage. And so people in Philadelphia, people in Pittsburgh. Live in some of the most expensive and even our some of our rural cities or some of the most expensive communities to live in the United States off of the minimum wage in the state. And all of our surrounding states have actually increased that. and so we're surrounded by a very wealthy economy where rent keeps increasing on us and the wages don't go up in our town. And people from New York and from DC come into Pennsylvania to take advantage of our lower. lower rents here, which drives up increases of rent cost of gentrification. And then we have public housing shortages. It takes years to get into a public housing facility. I was on the Philadelphia Housing Authorities wait list for several years because the faircloth limit and the faircloth amendments that was passed in nineteen ninety eight by Bill Clinton and watch faircloth basically has destroyed access to public housing. It If you if you look at public housing access in the United States, we have 950,000 public housing units and subsidized units. If you look at Hong Kong, they have seven million people, but they have two mil over two million public housing units. public housing access in other countries that don't have the same wealth that the United States has, same resources that the United States has. It's much further than ours. They put a much larger portion of their working class in the public housing for housing security. And even then, that's just the public housing portion. They also have other subs housing subsidization programs in Hong Kong and a lot of these other countries that have that actually take care of and house people in the public infrastructure. So public infrastructure is not invested very much in the United States. we don't have very much here in Pennsylvania, we don't have very much intercounty bus services, and so. trying to get different services if it's not covered by Medicaid is very much in shortage. And we just cut our services in the past couple of years in a lot of different areas and we're cutting more services right now in Pennsylvania. and so people who rely on public housing are very oftentimes people with disabilities, people who need mobility devices. I use a mobility device I use a walker right now to walk and I'm trying to graduate to a cane on my good days, but I'm not there yet. but a lot of people, you know, ride in wheelchairs and ride in with walkers or ride with scooters and they need accessible transit to be able to get to where they need to go. They need fixed route services that because the way the subsidies work, they need a fixed route service to be in their community to for the subs for the peoples with disability subsidies to count for a lot of these people. And a lot of services are getting cut in a lot of regions. And so I know in my county of line to Eldred was recently cut. And I know in the county next to mine, they cut a service between St. Mary's and Johnsonburg. And we can only get an intercounty service once a day. we're building a bus station here in the town. so there is there has been some investment in the infrastructure in the past few years, but it hasn't opened yet. It's been finished built for a few weeks. It's supposed to open by the end of the year. So I think they're still finishing their construction on the inside. But we just cut the T Public Transit Trust Fund in Pennsylvania to give it the roads and bridges because we gave the roads and bridges funding to state police. And the a lot of that infrastructure's not going be funded. as far as housing goes though, you need to be able to live near, you know, this type of infrastructure near a hospital, near a bus line if you are a person with disabilities. Because if you're not near an open hospital, then you know stuff closes. So I started a group in 2023 called Section Eightless Shoppers, trying to help people navigate the public housing shortage. and we specifically focused on looking in towns where the public housing wait list was low, where there was a hospital in a bus line that would take people from that hospital and that public housing facility and just try to connect people through social media who were advocating that they needed help with housing and security and helping them find public housing in another community because for some towns and cities it's 10 to 20 years long. Like in Philadelphia it was a 20 year long wait list for most of the most of the facilities. And and this is because there's a also a federal law, as I mentioned the Faircloth though is it prohibits municipalities, it prohibits state governments from actually increasing the supply of this service to people. And so a lot of people are kind of left in this position where they have to shop for that public housing in another community. So I applied to public housing in every single county of Pennsylvania when I was homeless or when I was about to go homeless. And the first place that I found public housing after, you know, years of waiting on other lists and trying to apply to somewhere that met my needs here in the state. So I didn't have to travel too far. And I at least could get like a family member or a friend to drive me to the between where I was and there or get a bus that would take me from there to there. it Bradford was the first one I was able to find. And I'd never been to Bradford before. Bradford is about an hour drive from the nearest relative I have. and so it's kind of out of the way. It's just never been a place I ever been. I'm very thankful to have the service and the supports that I have up here. the ATA takes me, the Olean, it takes me the to Erie a hundred miles away, Dubois seventy miles away. It'll take me to Pittsburgh, four hour drive away to get healthcare when I need it, despite the local shortages. I've gotten the surgery out in Counter's Port, which is in a rural county in the middle of nowhere, in Potter County. and so I'm I'm There is services that are available in this areas, but it it's a lot of shortage and you have to travel, you know, 50 to 70 miles. Like I go 70 miles for dental care. Anna: That's a long ways. Alex: But the bus takes me there. And that's the important thing is like we have buses that take people that far. And a lot of these services are up for cut right now. a lot of our services and in the ATA in the past few years, we lost fixed route services to call a bus. sort supports instead. in my state Senate district, CADA, which is the third biggest transit authority in the state, lost its lines to Belafonti. and so people who live and work in Belafonte no longer have a fixed route line. They have to do call a bus services to get to where they need to go. And that costs more and it limits some of the paratransit riders on some service access and subsidy access. Anna: Yeah, I mean, I definitely have heard from other advocates in Pennsylvania, right, that the transit cuts are, I mean, they're coming for Philadelphia and they're also coming for these rural systems. And yeah, I mean, what that means to people when when a bus line, you mentioned some of the bus lines that were getting cut or had been cut in your area. what do people do instead? You know, who who were using those bus lines to get from one rural community to another? Alex: If they're able to decall a bus service, they have to call usually a day or two ahead, depending on the service provider. So down in Bellafani, it's a two-day stay at the call ahead. up here in Bradford, if it's just for recreational and you're just using a standard shared ride, it's a day ahead if you need it for medical services where your insurance is paying for it. the medical assistance transportation program requires two days ahead for those who no longer could use the fixture outline to get to their appointments. That's one aspect. And there's those who you know, might have a family member they might be able to carpool. that's very few people though. we're talking one in five people in these regions who need an alternative means of transportation because they don't drive. and some people it requires that they move. If they're if the bus isn't there, if it doesn't run long enough, they have to move to a different town. That's what it what's happening down in Belafonte. Belafonte. Some people already moved from Belafonte to State College because of their service needs were no longer met when they cut the service from the fixed line down to shared ride. Devin: Yeah, and that gets back to the the your c kind of original idea that we were talking about, right? That the in interconnectedness between between disability, transit access, housing, and e economics and economic stability, right? Like one these are all pillars that are holding something up and one of them goes and then everything else just tumbles. You need to have reserve housing. Alex: in public housing to move people into if, you know, something catastrophic happens in another town. And we don't have that national security with public housing. And we don't have transit for those folks who can't, you know, get things on their own. How are you expecting these people to be mobilized into the workplace if we're not mobilizing them with transportation? So we're not mobilizing them to move where the jobs are with housing. And we're not mobilizing them to get the healthcare or get their resources appropriately. with transit. If your private insurance doesn't pay for transit services in some of these counties, you're stranded because we only have medical assistance transportation program subsidized by public. If you're on medical assistance or Medicare having its own program, then you're kind of screwed in your access to medical care and specialist care. And so they all rely on each other for sure. And then when hospitals close, now you're relying on those my Paratransit service, take me to a county, I can see a specialist. Anna: Just to give people a little context, can you describe like where Bradford is in Pennsylvania and you mentioned crossing state borders, you know, so you go to New York for some of your care, just give people sort of a sense of the geography. Alex: Yeah, so I'm the closest city in Pennsylvania to Buffalo, New York. we're north central Pennsylvania, about sixty miles from Buffalo, about sixty-seven miles from Canada, hundred miles to the east of Erie, and like a hundred and tw thirty miles north of Pittsburgh, north northeast of Pittsburgh. If you're going between Pittsburgh and Buffalo, we're right at the northern Pennsylvania border. On the way there. Anna: Thanks. Yeah, no, that I think that that helps people sort of ground themselves and I think, you know, it's interesting because a lot of the people we've interviewed for this podcast may have grown up in more rural areas and have moved to cities as non drivers, you know, bigger cities for that transit access. And you know, you you sort of made the opposite move, right? From from a more dense area to a more rural area because of the affordability. I I I'm curious, like 'cause I think there's this narrative in the US, right? That if you're a non-driver, you have to live in a city. And and that may be true in some cases, but I think it's also really possible for us to have, like what you were talking about, really great transit or we we can have reliable and and usable transit in more rural areas and small towns, but it's a a question of funding and priorities. Yeah, I mean, I I do you know other folks like talk who have made that move? Alex: Yes, Bradford is actually a destination hub for reverse Devin: Liv Alex: for internal migrate internal migrants. a lot of towns in rural Appalachia right now through public housing, public housing is kind of a tool which people in major cities sometimes have to use to find resources in more rural communities, more rural cities. And Bradford being a city, Bradford having one of the oldest public transit systems in the United States. is actually a a destination for people from all across the country, mostly from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, New York, and Cleveland, as a kind of centralized between that areas. because we have a Greyhound station, because we have a a regional airport that has services to Washington and to to Pittsburgh, we get people from Washington and Pittsburgh up in this area. And they apply up here because of the shortages in those counties. we have a lot of people who come here from more urban areas because of the college. because we have a university here as well, University of Pittsburgh, Bradford is here. And we have free college tuition to any Pennsylvania resident whose income's under $70,000 per year up here in Bradford, or one of the few schools that a Pennsylvania resident can get a four-year college degree for free. and So it's there's a lot of folks who come up here from bigger cities to more rural communities and see we and Pennsylvania is also really well known for reverse commuters. People who live in Philadelphia tend to reverse commute out to the suburbs, because one of the largest employment hubs is out in King of Prussia and Valley Forge area. And there's also a large employment hub north of the city going towards Ben Salem and Shamney area. there's several others in the Great Valley and elsewhere. A lot of people leave the city to go to work. And a lot of those people ride public public transit as well. So a lot of people end up leaving the city to go live in the suburbs or go live in rural communities because of housing affordability or because of work opportunities. and there's some really good work opportunities in some of these rural towns. if there was a bus line that ran, you know, frequently enough, there would be people who would go work. You know, in Johnsonburg at the paper mill for twenty four bucks an hour 'cause it's a pretty good paying job. The problem is, you know, there's not a bus line taking people back and forth anymore unless they ride the really expensive shared ride services. Devin: From my understanding is like your political right currently or your your the office that you hold or you most recently held is around elections and kind of you know, I think from what I could tell, you have this firm belief of you know, focusing on and expanding, fostering democracy in the communities that you're in. you know, and obviously we have this hard time right now. I think at any point with the federal government, because it's so big and it's the United States is such a vast country. but in Pennsylvania, I mean, for non drivers specifically, what is what is the access like to to voting there? Is it a vo vote by mail state? Do you have to go to the polls? If you go to the polls, how do you get there if you're a non driver? Alex: There you're definitely able to vote without having the ability to drive in Pennsylvania, but there are steps that you have to take to be able to do it. You need to have access to either the internet or someone to drive you somewhere to go or you have to pay for the transit to take take you to it. if you're not close enough to walk to your polling place. registering the vote is possible to do online. you can register to vote at the DMV. you can register to vote at the county assistance office if you're receiving public assistance. So there's a few ways to register to vote. if you have a phone service, you can call the when you go to call the line to phone line to apply for your public benefits for like food stamps and Medicaid, you can also register to vote while you do that other application. and that was a previous job I've had actually had. That's just something I used to do. so the vote registering to vote is pretty accessible in Pennsylvania. The post office used to have forms as well. So if you can walk to your post office, you can usually pick up a voter registration form at the post office and fill one out there. it's getting to the polling place that can be a challenge for some people, especially in rural townships where there's only shared ride services. And Forest County, they do offer countywide shared ride services. But the problem in Forest County is that you know, if you're five, six miles away from your polling place in your township. You know, you're looking at paying, you know, a lot of money for that shared ride service. The average shared ride in Forest County is about twenty-eight dollars per trip each way. So you're looking fifty-six bucks to go to vote if you've, you know, didn't register to get your paper vote by mail if you wanted to vote in person. and that would be the same for trying to go serve at the polling place as a poll worker that day in your community. In a lot of these areas, there's a lot of shortages for poll workers and elected officials in rural communities. PA. There's a lot of seats available for people in rural PA. A lot of townships don't and municipalities don't always fill their councils out here. And it's really important to just make note of that. but we can vote by mail. so if you register to vote by mail in Pennsylvania, you have to register by a certain date to be able to receive your mail and ballot. I believe that date will be in October. and you have to register to vote believe so many days in advance as well. So the the big issue is that if you do register to vote by mail, you have to vote by mail. Or you have to bring your mail and ballot to the polling place if you're trying to vote in person because you forgot to send it out in time. It has to be received by the end of the election day for your vote to count. And so if you Didn't mail out your mail and ballot in time or drop it in the drop box on time before election day. Then on election day, you take that and you hand it to the judge of elections, which is what I'm elected to do. I take that, I put it in a special folder, and then you're able to sign in to vote and vote on the machines or vote by a provisional ballot if you forgot it. Well, I will still hand you a provisional ballot if you forget your mail and ballot. So this is very accessible to vote in Pennsylvania. there's not very many barriers. Everyone at least gets handed a provisional ballot, even if they can't make any of the other steps happen. and then the county board of elections will verify if this is an eligible voter or not. Devin: As you said, there's seems to be openings for elected office in rural Pennsylvania. So non-drivers, you know, if we can get folks on the ballot out there right, that means you know, the more folks who are affected by this, they might be able to change the tide as you're talking about with the, you know, the public transportation and the funding and whatnot. Alex: Because we're Dillons rule state, the state preempts a lot of the financing and efforts. So we have a lot of municipalities under our county governments. And then they basically just have to say yes to what the county government says they're allowed to do. And then the county government's more so where the authority is. But there is definitely openings in the county governments. Very oftentimes nobody runs for county office either. And then nobody runs for state office against people. So most people in a lot of these communities run unchallenged. And so, you know, people definitely need to go out and run because it will at worst cases you're the advocate there who's who knows the constituents and will voice that to the official higher than you. And that creates more of a sense of urgency whenever you have a council member or or an a judge in a town saying, Hey I got a problem here in my town where I my people can't get to work and I need your help fixing it. That's more urgency than sometimes the rider itself. We want to get to a position with transit for all and with our other campaigns across the state where it's riders first, where officials look at riders and see that sense of urgency and importance. But sometimes we need to have those officials on board. And so if we can get riders to become officials, that's where, you know, that urgency comes from. Cause now there's legitimacy behind, you know, the demands. This person's got elected. They can get elected and they can challenge me. So I gotta listen to this person before they challenge me. Anna: I love that. I just yeah, we are we just launched a C4 here in Washington State to try to get more transit riders, you know, power and eventually it would be great to get some folks elected. Can you talk about the transit for all work and and sort of that hope of I know there's a lot of the funding is is controlled at the state level for for local transit agencies, is is my understanding of of the way things are in in Pennsylvania and and what that campaign is organizing to to do. Alex: So the municipality's role is basically limited down to the being able to do a match fund for the state fund funding, as you mentioned. Transit for all's work is trying to get the ability for municipalities to be able to increase, you know, the municipalities' role in it as well as get the state to fully fund the bare necessities of what what we need now and what we had before. We want to go back to the twenty nineteen service levels when we used to have more routes and not you know, not just f fund what we currently have and not consolidate and lose services like what we're current what we're currently seeing. transit for all is the only group in Pennsylvania that is working in all 67 counties of Pennsylvania on public transit to advocate for public transit. We've made contact with riders in all sixty seven counties for the goal of expanding public transit. And even up here in rural Pennsylvania, I've been able to make contact with hundreds of riders up here or constituents up here just to advocate and get them to send letters to their officials and to advocate that we need to have a bus service because this is the this is a historic system, not just, you know, our bare necessities. This is the oldest system in the United States. And this community has never existed without public transit. Even when it first existed as a city, Bradford was being drawn by horse-drawn carriages. And we used to have Horse-drawn trolley line till it electrified. We were actually the first city to have a monorail service, a passenger monorail service between Bradford City and Fosterbrook. And now we're the oldest rural subsidized bus service in the country. We have to make sure that those services continue to exist. And Transit for All is the only organization that's out there advocating for that. We're also advocating on our shared ride services because we realize that there is direct correlation between how shared ride and fixed route is funded. we have advocates within the transit authorities with who are workers for and drivers for these transit authorities. and they're advocates as well, not just riders. We're working with the transit unions and different rides and different services. And just the other day we had a meeting with Transit for All statewide and we were talking with individuals who are representatives of rabbit transit. And rabbits being hit hardest With these transit cuts. Eleven rural counties are losing their services and having their services consolidate, losing their fixed lines to shared ride. And they're right now their funding for fixed routes is being used to subsidize the accounting shortfalls of financing paratransit services. So they can't finance their needs for fixed routes because the state is also underfunding. the paratransit shared ride services that are need. And shared rides getting more expensive in Pennsylvania right now because the hospitals are closing. We have several hospitals that are closing because of these recent Medicaids federally. And so we're also going to be advocating in the federal government regarding, you know, the need to finance public transit in all these different capacities because it moves people to where they need to go and it's the only way this economy functions. We're seeing a collapse right now of rural health care and urban health care in the past couple of years since 2019. I was planning Philadelphia when Fauneman Hospital closed and watching that happen. And we had no authority in a city to really address, you know, public health care because the state in 2018 took away our rights as municipalities to finance public hospitals. And so there were nine provisions that used to be in state law that we no longer have. and just a couple years later, all these hospitals start closing. And now our mo municipal officials and our our local officials and the county level have no authority to run hospitals, even at the home rule with home rule exemptions, because the state law preempts what those counties are allowed to do in the county planning code and the municipal planning code do not enable them to be able to do that. we're operating off of a century-old municipal planning code that predates a lot of our modern public transit services, our health services, our schools, and a lot of the different infrastructure that our communities used to run today. So we really need statewide to overhaul that municipal planning code to enable municipalities to have rights to finance themselves and the services they need Anna: I spent some time in York, I guess two years ago, for an event and spent some time on Rabbit Transit and just thinking about, you know, the people I saw there, you know, riding those buses. There was a lot of folks in the transit center in York, which is actually it's a transit center I I bring up all the time of when I'm traveling and talking to folks 'cause it had a like a little kid area for, you know, keeping your, you know, young children entertained while you wait at the transit center, which I think was awesome. But yeah, just like that that we have decided as a country to walk away from people who are using these services, these public services, because we're in these funding crunches and we're just not gonna restructure or reprioritize to to to ensure that people can get where they need to go or to have the housing. In all this doom and gloom, we keep on trying to end these interviews with a question around hope and what gives you hope. right now in the work you're doing. And I think, you know, all of us couldn't be doing the advocacy work we do, or, you know, folks who are working within agencies or, you know, studying to do this work in the future. We couldn't do it if we didn't believe that it was possible to make things better. Like we all have to have some hope, even though it does feel hard at times. What gives you hope in doing this work? Or, you know, what what keeps you motivated? Alex: Out of every campaign that I've campaigned with, which Transit for All is like the one campaign issue that almost everybody says yes to. Usually when I'm out canvassing different issues, you know, it's like fifty-fifty, some of these people, you know, just are against it and they're just set against it or they don't want to do nothing. But with the bus, it just seems different. People just care about this issue a lot more. And so, like nine out of ten people I talk to about this, you know, like, yeah, I want to save the bus. Yeah, I want to make sure I have public transit. Yeah, I know someone who rides that service and needs that, or I ride that service and I need that. And, you know, the positivity around, you know, the messaging of this one issue and how many people it resonates with, and how many people see the need for the service and see how the service expanding would benefit their life, is incredible because A lot of people can't afford to rely on a car forever. And people want to have the security to be able to rely on a bus. And worrying about that bus disappearing and that security disappearing is a worry for all these people, even if they don't ride the service themselves. They know like they can't take work off to take care of their grandmother. And so they're more willing to sign a petition f to save the bus to save their grandmother's ride to the hospital to get their, you know, dialysis or their chemo. than they would be to, you know, do any other issue that I've talked to them about. You know, this is like trying to save the fire department. Everyone wants to save the fire department, you know? And so these this is probably one of the easiest campaigns that I've ever done campaigning for. And I and it's it's very positive and very fun. And that's what really gives me hope is, you know, how the community reacts to this one campaign. It's, you know, a very positive reaction from Everyone that I've campaigned to in the different counties on this issue. Anna: I mean, that's part of why I do this work, right? Is that that that that need for mobility is something that people understand. And if if, you know, you're talking about transit as a way for people who don't have other options to get where they need to go, it it resonates. Alex: I I was in Cowdersport, Pennsylvania. They don't have a fixed route bus line in Cowdersport and I got over sixty signatures because I wanted to save the bus in Cowdersport. The only service they have there is the paratransit service. They take people to the doc the medical assistance rides to take people to the doctors. Anna: Yeah. But I mean that's yeah, it's it's like people get that, that that you know, youth if you can't travel and you you are housebound, right? That's not not the community that anybody wants to live in for themselves or their, you know, family members or friends or neighbors. So Devin: That sounds very cool. It's very encouraging. I mean, it sounds like there's some things that Pennsylvanians get, intrinsically maybe that'll some folks don't in other places. So that's that's really good to know. you know, as we are kind of wrapping up here, I was wondering if Alex, you have any You know, anywhere folks can connect with you online if you want to share like social media or website or anything, or if they can even get involved in that campaign. Alex: I recommend people go to Transfer for All PA and, you know, fill out a letter to their legislator and advocate for that and help us, you know, save our public transit system across the state. they want to reach out to me, I'm on Facebook. My name's Alex Casper. You'll find me with the Pennsylvania and the American flag in the background. not really very active on much else. I'm on Instagram too. Alex Casper PA, I think is my my handle on social media if you find me. Correct. Devin: Right, well thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. I think this has been a really for me a very interesting conversation too, to learn a little bit more about a place I honestly don't know that much about. So I I r really appreciate it. Anna: Thanks for listening to NonDriver. I'm Anna Zivarts. Devin: And I'm Devin Silvernail. If today's conversation resonated with you, please subscribe and share the show with a friend. Anna: You can also leave us a review wherever you listen. It genuinely helps other people find the show. Devin: Nondriver is brought to you by the Nondrivers Alliance. Find more info at nondrivers.org. Anna: And this episode was produced by Devin. Devin: Wanna get in touch? Email us at nondriverpodcast at proton.me Anna: We'll see you next week.