All Entries / Charles Makes Ends Meet by Getting Part Time Work Done on Commute to His Main Job
In 2001 I was overseas on a military base. My wife decided to move to South Florida to take a job in journalism. After living with friends for a while and renting we were able to finance a house in Tamarac. Less than a year after that, I was transferred stateside. My office is in West Palm Beach.
Using the tri-rail I am able to get to work and leave my wife the one vehicle we had at the time so that she could continue to work. Without tri-rail we would have had to buy a new vehicle capable of the 120 mile round trip every day or lose one of our incomes. The later would have likely meant losing the house as well.
Even with a new vehicle it would have been very difficult. Fuel prices were rising steadily, insurance premiums after the storms more than tripled and my wife’s income has become spotty with the newspapers going bankrupt and putting themselves up for sale. For many in South Florida, the good times are gone and the tough times are threatening.
We did eventually buy a new truck. The 1996 truck became too unreliable for the freelancing my wife had to turn to after losing her full time position. But even the freelancing budgets are being cut.
To compensate I have taken a second job writing programs for the University of Florida. And with a portable computer I can do that while riding the train. Instead of losing two hours a day fighting traffic, burning expensive gas and wearing out our one reliable vehicle, I can make ends meet.
I know I am much better off than others I see riding the train. Every day hundreds ride from Miami or surrounding areas to Roca to work as caretakers and house cleaners. I see construction workers with their tools, day laborers being picked up at the stations and other government employees riding long miles for work. Even the airlines use tri-rail to transfer pilots and crew.
With congestion on I95 pushing it to LOS F during rush hours and the other transportation corridors adding expense to an already expensive daily necessity, tri-rail is the one north-south access strip that makes hundreds if not thousands of jobs feasible. Sure some folks would switch to driving and that would result in a few more mechanics but a significant portion of that revenue stream would go to out of state fuel suppliers and parts manufacturers. The money multiplying effect from lost incomes and bleed out of revenue would be quite negative.
South Florida is no longer growing; it is losing population daily. This is largely due to housing costs in affluent areas and high unemployment in less affluent areas. I am sure the next census will cause a rebalancing of Florida’s national influence.
Without tri-rail that would probably be a lot worse as it changes the dynamic away from California’s “drive till you qualify” search for feasibility between being able to afford getting to a job and being able to afford to live off what it pays. The folks that move out aren’t necessary the ones too poor to move, or unqualified to find work elsewhere, they are the core of both South Florida’s’ economy and civilization. Teachers, health care workers, military support personnel, construction workers...
Therein lays the quality of our lives.
