The Road to Employment Begins with Worker Mobility
By Christopher Johnston, FreshWater
If she could afford a car, Antaneshia Fletcher could drive to her job at Bloom Artisan Bakery & Café in less than 20 minutes. Instead, she rises at 4:30 am every day so she can spend two hours taking the two bus routes necessary to travel from her home in Euclid to the store near the Cleveland State University campus by 6:30 am.
The friendly though soft-spoken 25-year-old could take an Uber, but she estimates that would cost about $22 per day. Occasionally, she catches a ride, but mostly she listens to music or reads on her phone to wile away her four-hour journey to and from downtown (and that’s assuming everything is on time).
Antaneshia Fletcher: “Sometimes I have to call my boss and tell her I’ll be late because a bus broke down or is running late,” says Fletcher. “But she’s cool with it, because she knows where I live.”
Fletcher isn’t alone: Worker mobility or transportation to available employment stands as a barrier for many people who live in urban areas or are spread throughout Northeast Ohio.
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