Hobart student blind and stranded without taxi help

SHE may be legally blind, but university student Nicole McKillop had a life of independence firmly in view until her government travel subsidies were slashed.

Legally blind uni student Nicole McKillop has to cross the busy Channel Hwy and catch the bus since her taxi allowance was cut. Picture: KIM EISZELE

SHE may be legally blind, but university student Nicole McKillop had a life of independence firmly in view until her government travel subsidies were slashed.

Now the 20-year-old’s dreams have been obscured by a highway of obstacles, and even travel to uni has become a daunting and potentially dangerous feat.

No longer able to afford to take taxis into the University of Tasmania from her home in Margate, Ms McKillop now needs to cross the Channel Highway to get to a bus stop.

“Even at traffic lights I’ve had lots of near misses,” she said. “Crossing the road literally gives me anxiety.”

The travel restrictions have forced the young woman to cut back on uni and drop her piano lessons.

As she struggles to decide what else she will have to give up, such as a social life or her volunteer work, she admits her goal of independence feels more out of reach.

Ms McKillop said the federally funded NDIS scheme, which she joined when it started in Tasmania in 2013, had turned her life around.

“I was starting to feel like an independent adult, and I liked it. But I no longer feel like that,” she said.

Ms McKillop’s eye condition, called retinitis pigmentosa, means she sees only a tiny tunnel of vision directly in front of her, and she has less than 10 per cent peripheral vision.

The vision impairment is severe enough to attract the top travel allowance under the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but that equates to less than $70 a week. A single trip in a taxi to UTAS costs $40, so the NDIS allowance does not even cover one day’s return fare.

Her transition to the NDIS travel allowance means she no longer qualifies for the State Government’s Taxi Smartcard, which gave her a 50 per cent taxi subsidy until it was withdrawn last week.

Originally published as Hobart student blind and stranded without taxi help