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Route to independence

For people who need help getting around, figuring out how to get from here to there on a Hillsborough County bus can be a dead-end. That's where Mark Sheppard comes in.

By LANE DeGREGORY
Published January 30, 2005

[Times photo: Edmund Fountain]

Mark Sheppard explains HARTline’s bus system to Amy Bellnier, mother of 5-week-old Jonah. Bellnier, who needs to take the bus to the pediatrician’s office for checkups, is making a trial run.

	Justin Ward, 21, of Tampa waits for the bus that will take him and his travel trainer, Mark Sheppard, to the Publix where he works. Sheppard has been working with Ward, who has Down’s syndrome, longer than any other trainee.
	Mark Sheppard, Amy Bellnier and her son, Jonah, arrive at their destination, the Genesis Women’s and Children’s Services Center in Tampa. This time, Sheppard helps get the stroller ready for Jonah; when she travels solo, Bellnier will have to manage getting the stroller on and off the bus by herself.
	Mark Sheppard and Justin Ward share a high-five during a training session. “Achieving this travel independence is a Mount Everest to people with disabilities,” Sheppard says.

TAMPA - He's early. As usual. Eleven minutes, to be exact. And he has to be.

He parks his car, grabs his briefcase from the back seat. Under the dashboard lights, he checks his watch: 6:04 a.m.

It's still black outside on this cold January Tuesday. Pale stars are winking around a crescent moon.

He walks up the driveway, shivering in the darkness. "Good morning," he says, when a woman finally answers his knock. "I'm here to meet Amy," he says, smiling.

Mark Sheppard has been here before. He has taught five other residents of Alpha House how to ride the bus.

"Come on in," says the woman. "Amy isn't quite ready. You're early."

He paces around the living room of the home for single moms. After a few minutes, he dips into his briefcase. "Route 30 Leaves Kennedy Blvd. & Armenia Ave. . . . 6:37 a.m.," says his schedule.

He has built in 10 minutes to walk to the stop. Ten minutes to wait: the bare minimum. Two minutes in case of contingencies.

The city bus waits for no one. Not even the travel trainer.

It doesn't sound hard. How hard could it be?

But try figuring out how to get to work on one of the 200 public buses that snake along 40 routes through Hillsborough County.

Where is the closest stop to your home? What route runs where? How many buses will it take to get you where you need to be? How do you transfer? Where do you get off? Do the routes cross? Can you get there from here?

It can be confusing. And intimidating. Especially the first time.

And if you have a special need, if you have to push a stroller or board the bus in a wheelchair, if your eyesight is failing or you can't hear the driver announce the stops or you can't read the schedule, maneuvering through the public transit system can be downright impossible.

So many folks don't have cars. Can't drive. Can't afford cabs. They stay home, shut off from everything, because they're too scared to try the bus.

Mark Sheppard - Uncle Mark, some students call him - gives people passes to the world. Or, at least, Hillsborough County.

The only travel trainer for HARTline, he offers free, personalized help for anyone who wants to ride the bus. Anyone.

Sheppard is 53. His thick, pewter hair frames his rectangular face, and laugh lines fan out from his ice blue eyes. His lips seem tipped into a perpetual smile. He's as tall as a basketball player, as broad as a linebacker. His bearing and his voice exude the soft benevolence of a Baptist youth minister.

Five days a week, from 5:30 a.m. until well after dinnertime, he boards up to a dozen buses a day, crisscrossing the county with pregnant girls and elderly women, people with learning disabilities and mental illnesses, paralyzed veterans, folks who have lost their licenses, couples who just moved here. For a day or a month, for as long as it takes, he maps different routes for them, traces their steps down the sidewalk, rides behind them on the vinyl seats.

When he thinks a student is ready, he insists on two solo runs. He drives behind the trainee's buses, following in his car, just in case. "Haven't lost one yet," he says.

He watches over them all, because of the one he couldn't help.

At 6:16 a.m., a blue baby stroller glides into the living room, pushed by a thin woman wearing a thick parka. The hood is pulled tightly around her tired face.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I was trying to get him bundled." Her 5-week-old son is wrapped in a soft snowsuit, covered by a fleece blanket. "I'm Amy. And this," she says, folding back a corner of the cloth, "is Jonah."

Amy Bellnier needs to learn how to get from Alpha House to the pediatrician's office where Jonah will have checkups. She is Sheppard's first student today. Sheppard has never met the 41-year-old single mom. But he knows everywhere she wants to go. And when.

He has charted her walk to the bus stop, her transfer downtown, her trip to the doctor's clinic. "This is for you," he says, handing her the schedule. On the back, he printed two maps so she could follow every twist and turn, learn her landmarks.

"I don't have an appointment today. I just wanted to practice," Amy says, pushing the baby down the sidewalk behind him. "I hope that's okay. I was worried I wouldn't know where to stop."

"I'll show you. I'll show you everything. I want you to become travel-independent, so you can go anywhere," Sheppard says. He checks his watch: 6:27 a.m.

"Now, we'll have to hurry. We've only got 10 minutes to make your first bus."

He shows Amy how to stand at the bus stop: within 15 feet of the sign, facing traffic. How to put her $1.30 in the slot beside the driver's seat - exact change required. Sit near the front, he tells her, where you can watch out the window. You'll need to watch for certain cross streets, so you know when to pull the cord that rings the bell. "And you'll have to hold your baby and collapse that stroller," he says. "Can't block the aisles on the bus." He helps her fold the stroller, settles beside her on the bench seat. He hands her a thick HARTline book - everything she'll need.

Express routes. Connections to Pinellas. Day passes. Weekly passes. Discount fares. Saturday schedules. Holiday schedules. Whom to call in case she leaves Jonah's diaper bag on the bus.

"And here's where you'll get off," he tells her. "We'll get there a little after 7:25 a.m."

They climb off across from the Genesis clinic. But since she doesn't have an appointment today, they cross the street to wait for a bus back home.

At 9:18 a.m., Sheppard deposits Amy and Jonah outside Alpha House. "Okay, Amy. You're home safe and sound," he says. "You did great today. I'll set up a time to see you solo soon."

She thanks him. Three times. "You gave me confidence," she says, waving.

Then Sheppard drives across town to Britton Plaza Station, to board another bus. Time to get Justin, his hardest case, his favorite student.

The one who makes him remember.

Before he took this job in April, Sheppard had never ridden a city bus.

He had been a Marine, a diesel mechanic, an insurance salesman and a bus driver - but never a passenger.

Then someone told him the county's travel trainer had died. There was an opening.

"What's a travel trainer?" Sheppard asked.

He checked around and became obsessed. He felt that something - fate? the Lord? past events? - was drawing him to the perfect job.

His predecessor had handled requests from people who called in, seeking aid with the bus system. Sheppard, a St. Petersburg native, took the job another step, reaching out to market his services. He spoke at retirement communities, stroke awareness meetings and the University of South Florida, lauding the merits of public transit, promising to explain any mysteries, offering free one-day passes.

He brought in so many new riders, he can't keep up with all the requests.

It takes at least a week, now, to schedule a training session with him.

Justin Ward is waiting. On his front steps, beside his mom, he's fingering the HARTline pass that hangs around his neck. When he sees Sheppard strolling up the street, he sprints to the sidewalk.

"Hey, Mark! I missed you!" he calls, throwing his arm around the travel trainer's broad back.

Justin, 21, has Down's syndrome. He needs to get from his home to Publix, where he bags groceries. He's too old to be riding around with his mom.

Sheppard has been working with Justin longer than any other trainee. He has tried a dozen different routes since September. But Justin gets confused crossing streets; he can't remember to pull the bell to make the bus stop; he doesn't understand why he has to transfer.

Justin may never master the transit system. But each time he rides the bus, Sheppard sees at least a little progress. And as long as Justin keeps trying, Sheppard says, he'll keep working with him.

Justin saunters down the street, his arm still around Sheppard. "I'm glad to see you again," he says. "I missed you."

Sheppard stops at the corner. Justin looks up, confused. "Which way do we turn?" Sheppard asks. Justin smiles and shrugs. "No, you have to show me. I'm following you, today."

Justin hesitates, turns right, then left. That way seems familiar. "Left?" he asks softly.

"Very good," Sheppard says, putting his arm around Justin's shoulders. "Come on, driver, let's go."

The bus trip takes 40 minutes. By car, it's a five-minute drive.

"Now, we've done this several times. Where's this route going?" Sheppard asks as their bus creeps off the curb.

Justin takes off his sunglasses. Screws up his forehead. He looks out the window, at the houses and stoplights blurring past.

Then he turns to Sheppard and grins, "No idea."

Sheppard never got to know his first son. But if the boy had gotten to grow up, Sheppard imagines, he would be a lot like Justin.

Sheppard's first child, Benji, had Down's syndrome too. Doctors kept the baby in the hospital for seven weeks. Shortly after Benji came home, when his mom went to wake him one morning, the little boy was cold.

"Crib death. We only had him home two weeks," Sheppard says, choking back a sob. "The coffin looked so small, up on the altar."

For years, Sheppard tried not to dwell on the child he lost, or the man Benji never got to become. Sheppard and his wife, Silvia, raised two other sons and a daughter, who gave them two grandchildren.

Now, he thinks about Benji every time he helps Justin or Mike or Chris. And when he hears from his students months later, learns they're surviving out on their own, he knows this is what he is supposed to be doing.

"About 80 percent of my students have mental challenges," he says. "Most of them would never be able to get a driver's license. Without the bus, they'd be stuck - or at the mercy of others."

Mike needed to learn to ride the bus so he could get to college. Chris wanted to get to Burdines, to enroll in a training program. And Melissa - she's 19, learning-disabled. She hoped to work at a day care and go to the movies with her boyfriend. "Because of you, Uncle Mark," Melissa told him, "I finally got to go on a date without my dad."

There have been others. So many others. That 12-year-old Carrollwood boy who wanted to attend a magnet middle school across town; a retired woman named Minta who wanted to walk the mall with her friend; a great-grandmother in Sun City who wanted to get to Hillsborough County Community College's Brandon campus to learn computers - a three-hour bus trek. Sheppard rode with her both ways.

He arms each student with his card and his cell phone number, just in case. People call him on Saturday mornings, Wednesday nights. "What time is my bus again?" Or, worse yet, "Where am I?" Sheppard keeps maps in his car, another set at his house. He talks his students through their crises, tells them they'll be fine.

He posts his successes on his office door. He writes each graduate's name on a white card and dates the corner. Each card, he says, represents a life.

After every 35 names, he draws a red line. That represents enough people to fill a bus, he explains. An entire 40-foot city bus.

Since April, he has filled two. Two and a half, to be exact.

At 10:25 a.m., Route 89 pulls into WestShore Plaza for a stopover. Justin reaches into his pocket and digs out a red Slinky. He sits across from Sheppard, inch-worming the toy from one hand to another.

"Is that a new one?" Sheppard asks.

Justin grins, offers to share the plastic Slinky. It has ears. "Mickey Mouse," Justin says.

Soon, the bus lumbers off. Sheppard perches on the edge of his seat, watching out the windshield. "Now remember," he tells Justin, "we start looking for that yellow roof around here. That's where we pull the bell to get off. Now, come sit by me so you can see."

Justin scoots across the aisle, still toying with his Slinky. After a few minutes, a yellow roof rolls by. Justin doesn't notice until someone pulls the line for the next stop.

"This isn't us," he tells Sheppard, surveying the strange corner. "What do we do? Should we get off?"

Sheppard nods and ushers Justin out the door. "See if you can figure out where we are," Sheppard says patiently. "Where did we come from?"

Justin turns to scan the street behind him. Two blocks back, he spies another bus stop. "That's us!" he shouts. "We have to go backwards."

"That's right," Sheppard says, pride mingling with relief. "You've got it, brother."

They catch the No. 19, eventually wind down S Dale Mabry. This route is 3 miles longer than it needs to be. But it drops Justin off on the Publix side of the street, so he doesn't have to cross the highway.

"Now, show me how you get to the door. Show me the safe path we found you," Sheppard says, following Justin off the bus. Justin runs ahead of Sheppard, sprinting through the midmorning sunshine, staying to the left edge of the grocery parking lot.

Outside the double glass doors, his mom is waiting. "Hey, honey!" she calls, waving. "You made it!"

Justin doesn't seem surprised. "See?" he shouts, planting a kiss on her cheek. "I made it."

Forty-eight minutes early.

- Lane DeGregory can be reached at 727 893-8825 or degregory@sptimes.com

For additional information about HARTline, log on to www.hartline.org To reach travel trainer Mark Sheppard, call 813 623-5835, ext. 1105, or e-mail him at sheppardm@hartline.org

[Last modified January 27, 2005, 09:55:03]