Okay, seriously?

[ysobel]

The town I live in has a fairly decent public transportation system (which is even accessible, except for the times when they use authentic red London double-decker buses, and you can get a disabled pass that basically gives you free rides) but it's designed around the university, which means that getting from one place to another, when neither of them is near the university, is not always easy.

(this is not the fail. It's annoying, but not fail.)

I have a weekly appointment Fridays at 3pm. Because of the way routes are laid out, I would need to catch a bus at 1:45, ride it for about ten minutes, wait half an hour to transfer to a connecting route, ride it for about five minutes, and be there over half an hour before my appointment. Seriously, I could walk* there faster; it takes less than an hour. A rather miserable less-than-hour if it's cold and rainy, but it's not like the waiting times would be any better.

(* for definitions of walk that translate to using my wheelchair. I think of traveling by wheelchair (without additional vehicles such as being in a van) as walking, but I often confuse people when I say it.)

Now. The place where I lives has a paratransit service. Their official website says, and I quote:

Who May Use This Service?

* Customers who qualify under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990
* Disabled customers may be accompanied by a personal attendant at no extra charge when required.
* One unregistered companion may accompany a registered customer, and must pay the 1-way fare.

They are a curb-to-curb service, with the usual fun about how you have to give a 20-minute window (i.e. be available 10 minutes before and after the scheduled time) but the bus will only wait 3 minutes, etc. But basically, it looks like a thing where you can use it if you're disabled, right?

...sort of.

It turns out that you can use it if a) you are disabled, and b) the nature of the disability means that you cannot use any other public transportation service, including the aforementioned bus system.

WTFFF.

(and even more annoyingly: the fare for the bus service is free with a disabled pass, and otherwise $1 per trip; the paratransit is $2.)

ETA: I just realized that they do all communication by phone, which means that an otherwise-independent person with hearing or speech problems is basically screwed. Even better!

Comments

[jadelennox]

What the fucking FUCK?

[ysobel]

I don't even KNOW.

(And I remember using them about nine years ago, when I was working and living with my parents; there was no way for me to get to any bus route, but they grumbled a lot because we were officially outside the city limits (and therefore the county's responsibility, whereas the county claimed that we were functionally part of the city). And it was also fun because I had no flex time with when I left work; even if there were an emergency, it was "okay, we're calling you to let you know we're here, come down now". augh.)

[codeman38]

Oh, gah, the county/city stuff. Grr.

There are some places in town that I just can't get to without begging for a ride, even via paratransit, because they're still considered to be in the city but are beyond the county line and transit is on a county basis.

[pandorasblog]

We have something like that here, but after applying to get it (had to get a statement from my GP) I found that it would be pretty much useless for me, because it's done by county, and I live near the big city where both my hospitals are, but that city is just over the border in another county. I barely travel around in my own county; the major healthcare amenities I use just aren't there. Once I added up the charges for going into another county, it was more expensive than public transport, though still a saving on taxis.

I also felt reluctant to test the system on something like a hospital appointment where timing would be vital - it seemed like it had been designed more with 'letting elderly people get out and about, do the shopping and visit friends', which is nice in itself, but not ideal for my needs. In the end I was lucky in that I gradually got more mobile and confident about using public transport, but I'd worry about people who don't have that option.

[mariness]

:: nods ::

We have a disabled shuttle service here, which I would love to use, if it weren't completely useless for my purposes. For example, the shuttle runs only from 8 to 4, and by 4, they mean "you are home by 4," so if I have a doctor's appointment at, say, 3, and it runs late, I'm screwed. It also costs me $7 because I am outside 3/4 of a mile of a fixed route.

The good thing is that the buses do accommodate wheelchairs. Unfortunately, I have to take my trike (which can't get on a bus) to get to the bus, so after that, I'm using a cane.

The REAL excitement, however, comes if I want to buy a monthly bus pass. You can buy one day passes for $4.50 when you get on the bus, which is fine, but if you need to take the bus daily, the monthly bus pass is the much better deal - $50 for the month, or if you are disabled (with doctor's statement) $25.00 for the month. Although good luck trying to get the form for the disabled bus pass for your doctor to sign...

Unfortunately, the only place in my entire city that sells the monthly bus passes, is not accessible via sidewalks. (It's also, ironically, not all that accessible via the bus.) The irony of needing a car to take public transportation is not lost on me.

[jesse_the_k]

Oh, paratransit, it's so horrible, and yet so frustrating! What follows is in no way to minimize your experience, but to shed a little light on its mystery.

I know a bit about the rules'n'regs because I spent a decade doing paratransit and transit activism, including chairing the transit and paratransit boards in my town. Way too many transit systems don't come even close to fulfilling the requirements under the ADA. Those requirements are a lot better than nothing, but still not ideal.

You said:
It turns out that you can use it if a) you are disabled, and b) the nature of the disability means that you cannot use any other public transportation service, including the aforementioned bus system.

The theory is, if you could use the transit system EXCEPT for a barrier created by the interaction of your disability with the world, then your transit system must provide you with paratransit service.

Here are some examples of people who qualify:

Jill has cognitive impairments. She gets confused and anxious at the bus transfer station. She is not able to tell whether a friendly stranger could intend her harm. Her trip to work requires a transfer. She can get paratransit for a ride to work.

Jane has a vision impairment. She uses a mobility cane to navigate. Her psychic lives in a part of town without sidewalks. To reach the psychic from the bus stop would require walking in the street against traffic. She can get paratransit for a ride to the psychic.

Jesse has a mobility impairment, and uses a power wheelchair. She lives near a bike path, which is connected to an extensive pedestrian network to her library. When even plowed snow and ice block her access to the bike path, she can get paratransit for a ride to the library.

So, users are eligible for paratransit on a case-by-case and ride-by-ride basis. The application you're asked to fill out is to see if there are any cases where you'd be eligible. (Happy to go over those issues in nauseating detail.) It's not your diagnosis or label that matters, but your functional capacity. Some people can use the transit system, and others can't. If you can't because of your impairment, then the ADA guarantees you the right to paratransit.

Why it costs more: because it's door to door, there's no "volume discount" like there is for city buses. On the big bus, every run costs the same whether there are no people on board or a standing load. The income is better, but the cost is the same. Bus routes depend on riders walking that last 1/4 mile from their home; paratransit has to drive there and back. All transit systems subsidize the cost of rides. The last time I had data the system cost was $35/ride for paratransit vs $2.50/ride for transit. The ADA permits a paratransit ride fare to be twice as much as the full regular bus fare. Smart transit systems give big discounts for disabled users on the regular bus to keep costs down.

Finally, the paratransit call center must provide access via TTY (or other non-speech equivalent). My town's call center gave up training their own customer service people and tells people to use the text relay (nationwide 711 connects you to your local relay provider).

[codeman38]

I just realized that they do all communication by phone, which means that an otherwise-independent person with hearing or speech problems is basically screwed. Even better!

Gaaahhh yes yes yes! I'm eligible for paratransit where I live, but even making a relay call is just so spoon-consuming, much less making a voice call. E-mail is so much easier for me, if they only offered it. (Though at least they know how to answer relay calls, which is more than can be said for the doctors' offices who hung up thinking I was some sort of telemarketer when I tried calling via relay...)

And there's the whole issue that I often don't know how long I'll be in a place, so I don't know how long to schedule the trip for. Not to mention that there's like an hour window as to when you actually get picked up, so if you have to be somewhere on time, good luck...

[jesse_the_k]

As far as I can tell, it's impossible to be on time when using paratransit. Just ain't happening. If I need to be someplace on time, I schedule the ride so I'm there at least an hour early.

Because, you know, disabled people have an infinite amount of time to spend.

[the_jack]

Unless the ADA somehow magically works differently in your state than the way it does in CT (where I live), NY and NY (where I have "guest access" via my CT paratransit credentials), you should be eligible.

So long as there is any place in your municipality that is in the paratransit service area which you can't get to using the regular bus -- even if you can get to most or even 99% of places using the regular bus -- you are eligible for paratransit.

You'll have to fill out a bunch of paperwork, and you'll need a doctor to sign off on a shorter form (and you may need to carefully explain to the doctor what exactly they need to document for you, especially if that particular doctor hasn't done one of these forms before) but it's no more taxing than the usual paperwork hurdles they make us jump through to get any of the stuff we need.

I use my chair or walker (or on rare occasions just a cane) on the bus when I can, since the bus is so much more affordable, but I absolutely rely on paratransit when I need it.

There are plenty of times when neither the bus nor paratransit can get me where I want or need to go (e.g. to dinner, or a late-in-the-day appointment, since even the bus system shuts down completely at 6:30pm) but that's a whole other rant.

Sadly familiar

[roserodent.myopenid.com]

This is sadly familiar to me. I have appointments at a hospital where they have no parking for patients. This is done on purpose to be "green" apparently. I know there is parking because I was once let into the parking area to turn around to leave, but it is reserved for doctors.

So they refuse to pay for taxis even though this is against the law (complaint escalated to the point it is currently with the Public Services Ombundsman). This is a refund under the low income scheme, which is to pay for travel to hospital for people who otherwise would have to not go to hospital at all, you gotta be pretty poor to get this.

Then they told me I had to come by hospital transport, who then told me I don't meet the criteria, which is fine, I don't think I should, I just think they should let me park my car there.

So next up they said go by equivalent of Paratransit. But same problem, I can get to *other* hospitals than this one by bus, so I don't qualify. Same reason I can't get a taxi discount card.

So when I went by taxi they refunded me the "cheapest avaiable travel" which, in their opinion, was the paratransit fee less the discount from the Taxicard scheme, which is not even valid on paratransit!

Oh, and the paratransit also doesn't allow you to book more than one journey per month to the same location to stop people using it week on week for day centres and stuff. First - why? Second - some people actually *have* to go to appointments at the same hospital. So even if I qualified I still would have no transport. All this instead of putting in a single disabled parking bay in a car park they already have.