The Great White North

We’re finally getting our first major snowfall of the season. I’m still here at work, but nearly everyone else has left to fight their way through traffic. This one of those days when I’m really glad I don’t have a long commute. Downtown Minneapolis is only a fifteen-minute drive from here, although it might take a bit longer today. Some of my colleagues may be sitting in their cars for an hour or two before they reach home. I understand the appeal of suburban living, but I don’t think I could handle spending a fifth or a quarter of my waking hours stuck in traffic.
The disability community has been talking about the recent death of a woman with a disability in St. Paul. She was going to a wedding at the Conservatory in Como Park on Saturday evening and used a taxi to get there. You can read the details here, but she apparently was dropped off next to a locked door. She tried to cut across some uneven terrain and fell out of scooter. She was lying somewhere just out of plain sight and she froze to death. Now, some people are wondering why the taxi driver didn’t make sure she safely entered the Conservatory. Or why she didn’t use regular paratransit service, which has a door-to-door policy. It’s a tragic death, but I’m not sure all this hand-wringing will do much good. People with disabilities are certainly more vulnerable than the general population, but sometimes weird things happen against which there simply is no protection. Maybe this woman should have stuck to the sidewalk. Maybe she should have asked the driver to accompany her inside. The sequence of events that led to her death were freakish and singular, which isn’t very comforting. But I’m not sure what other conclusions can be drawn from this incident.