Seattle: Low Pay, Long Pricey Commute Often Go Hand in Hand

[marmar]

WA: Low Pay, Long Pricey Commute Often Go Hand in Hand

JANET I. TU ON AUG 31, 2015
SOURCE: MCCLATCHY


Aug. 30--Simon Nakhale remembers the night his 20-year-old son, Leo, walked nearly three hours because he had missed the last bus home.

With no money for a cab ride, no family car or friends available to pick him up, Leo followed the map on his smartphone to their home in the Fairwood area of unincorporated King County.

"Oh my God, we felt so bad," Nakhale recalls of that late night. "We kept calling him until he got so exhausted, he couldn't answer."

That incident became one of the reasons the family, which had emigrated from Nairobi, Kenya, at the end of 2013, bought a used car for Nakhale earlier this year and is leasing one for his wife, Gladys Shivambo.

Now they spend about a third of their income on transportation -- and his commute to two jobs consumes plenty of time as well.

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http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/12108984/low-pay-long-pricey-commute-often-go-hand-in-hand