Bus Riders Union of Austin, Texas | El Sindicato de Pasajeros

Curb-to-curb rides should not be restricted, about 100 people tell board.

By Ben Wear
Austin American-Statesman
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Capital Metro's board should quash a series of planned changes in its services for people with disabilities, board members were told Tuesday night by about 100 people who take those curb-to-curb "special transit service" rides.

"STS is beautiful as it is," said Benjamin Brown, who is visually impaired. "We don't need any limitations, or stricter penalties, or restrictions. We have enough restrictions as it is."

Agency officials had originally intended to make the changes without going to the Capital Metro board for a vote, arguing that they were procedural rather than policy changes.

But a sustained public outcry in recent weeks led to Tuesday's hearing, as well as what became an unlimited line of speakers at the board's March 31 meeting.

Based on a summary of the changes distributed at Tuesday's hearing at the Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center in North Austin, the board will still be offering only "feedback" going forward.

A cutback in taxi rides, some of which has already occurred, has sparked the most consternation — as well as a lawsuit — among some of the 9,000 people eligible for Capital Metro's door-to-door pickup services. A temporary order by federal Judge Lee Yeakel in that lawsuit allowed Capital Metro to continue to use agency vans for some people who had already lost taxi services but mandated in other cases that it continue to allow riders to use taxis.

There will be a hearing May 19 on a potential permanent injunction against Capital Metro's taxi changes.

Several speakers Tuesday said the taxi system, which allows some people with disabilities to use vouchers for rides, should stay as it was before the changes began.

"Leave the vouchers alone," said Winford Haynes, who is blind. "They work."

The other half-dozen or so changes would take effect in the coming months and include a 700 percent increase in the penalty for excessive last-minute cancellations of scheduled rides and a more stringent eligibility screening process.

Agency officials have said Capital Metro is spending about 19 percent of its budget to provide 650,000 rides a year, just 2 percent of its overall ridership, and that it must control paratransit costs as it deals with an aging baby boom generation likely to increasingly need such services.

The 2,000 or so rides provided each day include 1,100 "subscription" rides, which are lifts to and from jobs, regular doctor appointments or dialysis and other recurring demands.

But some people who use the paratransit services, which are available only to those whose disabilities make it impossible for them to use regular bus service, say this is just another in a series of efforts by the agency to make budgetary room as it builds a $100 million-plus commuter rail line and takes on $10 million or more in yearly costs to operate it.

Capital Metro, like all transit agencies, is required under federal law to provide special services for people with disabilities.

The federal government, to offer comparable transit service to everyone, also requires the agency to provide the door-to-door rides — which Watford prefers to call "curb-to-curb" — for anyone who lives within three-quarters of a mile of one of the agency's regular bus routes.

bwear@statesman.com; 445-3698