A DeKalb County mother told Channel 2 Action News that MARTA Mobility, the public transportation service for the disabled, didn’t notify her that the bus transporting her disabled son broke down for hours.
Sondra Tolson, who lives in Decatur, said her son Marquis was hours late getting home after he was picked up at the DeKalb Service Center, Channel 2 reported. Marquis, 35, has cerebral palsy.
Marquis rides MARTA Mobility from Monday through Friday from Decatur to the DeKalb Services Center, but his 19-mile commute home on May 25 arrived nearly four hours late, Channel 2 reported.
The news station reported that MARTA Mobility didn’t call Tolson until after 5 p.m., almost two hours after the bus initially broke down. She told the station she called multiple times beforehand trying to get information on her son’s whereabouts.
She’s now calling for the service to be investigated.
“I was just so upset,” Tolson told Channel 2. “I advocate for everything for him, and all I ask is that MARTA be fair to me, and they’re not.”
A MARTA Mobility spokesperson sent a statement to Channel 2 saying Marquis is a valued rider who had taken 195 trips in the six months leading up to the incident. It said the bus broke down at 3:30 p.m., and a replacement vehicle arrived 40 minutes later due to heavy traffic before resuming its route.
The statement didn’t address Tolson’s complaint about not being called closer to the time of the incident, the news station reported.
"I mean, it’s just like they just don’t care because they know that we need them, and it’s really sad. It’s a shame," Tolson said.
The MARTA Mobility communications director later told Channel 2 the service takes complaints seriously, and they’re thankful to Tolson for bringing these matters to their attention, and they plan to investigate this situation.
In other news:
About the Author
