Emily F. Keller: Journalist

City Council Transportation Committee Questions MTA Cuts

   MTA New York City Transit President Thomas Prendergast spent last Thursday morning fending off criticism from the City Council Transportation Committee about drastic service cuts planned for this spring.

    The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to eliminate or reduce service on dozens of bus lines, saying that many of the lines overlap with other MTA bus and subway services.

    However, many seniors and people with disabilities are unable to switch to the subway if their bus route disappears, or may require a particular bus to reach the accessible subway stops that comprise only one-fifth of the system.

    The MTA also plans to reduce Access-A-Ride paratransit service while promising to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines that requires the transit provider to offer the service to people who are unable to use subways and buses because of a disability. Kathy Andrade and J.M. Colon (pictured) said they oppose the cuts.

    This article was published on Transportation Access. Click here to read the article.

MTA Plan Will Cut Buses, Subways and Access-A-Ride

    People with disabilities and their advocates are voicing their opposition to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) latest plan to cut service on Access-A-Ride, buses and subways.

    The MTA said it will modify Access-A-Ride service by bringing customers to the nearest accessible subway or bus station rather than going all the way to their destination. The MTA also plans to tighten eligibility standards and increase the use of taxi vouchers.

    The MTA board announced the plan at its December meeting following a string of bad financial news that reduced the transportation budget by $383 million.

    This article was published in the February 2010 issue of Able News. Click on the page numbers to read the story: one, two and three.

MTA Approves Plans to Cut Subway, Bus and Access-A-Ride

    The Board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority passed a budget and financial plan that would shrink service options for disabled riders beginning in April 2010.

    The service cuts are similar to those that were approved and then rescinded earlier this year when the state government provided a $2.3 billion annual funding package.

     However, the paratransit cuts have changed. In lieu of the proposed fare hike that drew strong criticism, the MTA has proposed changing the nature of the service, bringing customers to accessible subway and bus stops rather than their destinations.

    This article was published on Transportation Access. Click here to read the article.

Fifty-Ninth Street Station Elevators are Operational

    The 59th Street - Columbus Circle subway station has four working elevators to take disabled travelers and others from street level to turnstiles and subway platforms. However, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has not informed the public that they exist.   

    An elevator at the corner of 58th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan takes passengers to the gate and booth level of the station. There is one elevator that takes passengers from there to the platform of the downtown A, B, C, D and 1 trains. Another two elevators take passengers from the booth level to the uptown platform for the same trains. One more elevator is still under construction.

    Edith Prentiss (pictured), an advocate for accessible transit and a member of the New York City Transit Riders Council – an independent advisory board to the MTA – explored the station last week to locate the elevators. “We’re path finding,” she said.

    Published on Transportation Access. Click here to read the article.

A Trip to Dance

     As Clara Bailon pushed over sidewalk cracks outside her home in the Bronx, she told stories about the old days.

    She remembered being left on the curb on her way to the beach with friends by a bus with a broken lift in the 1980s. She recalled quitting her job at a bank in lower Manhattan after graduating from college because glitches in the transit system made it difficult to show up on time. She talked about harassment and indifference from transit workers and commuters. She remembered being tripped over on the subway stairs during rush hour.

    “You have to learn to be a little assertive having a disability,” Bailon said about her experience with Access-A-Ride and the subway and bus systems.

    Bailon has spent decades asserting herself within a complex transit system that expands its accessible options gradually but incompletely. She praises the “good Samaritans” who have stepped in where the system falls short, lifting her wheelchair over gaps between subways and platforms where wheels sometimes stall, and offering directions to accessible subway stops that comprise less than one-fifth of the subway system.

    Published on Transportation Access. Click here to read the article.

Utah Transit Authority Cuts Monthly Paratransit Pass and Service Area

    The Utah Transit Authority has made new cuts to its specialized transportation service for people with disabilities, where ridership has already dropped by more than 50 percent since 2000.   

    Starting today, paratransit riders in Salt Lake City are no longer able to purchase unlimited monthly trip passes. By next October, trips beyond three-quarters of a mile from mass transit bus stops will also be eliminated.

    The UTA board of trustees voted in late August to eliminate the $84 unlimited ride pass for the shared ride service, citing agency-wide cuts stemming from declining tax revenue. Customers who made more than 16 round trips per month – at a cost of $2.50 per trip – benefited from the pass.

    UTA also voted to discontinue rides outside the legally required service area of three-quarters of a mile from mass transit bus and rail stops. UTA will phase out the additional trips over the next 12 months while working with customers to identify alternative methods of travel. The primary substitute is a new deviated route service that picks up riders in the vicinity of a set area for an extra $1 but is not regulated by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

    Published on Transportation Access. Click here to read the article.

Assemblyman Kellner Evaluates Taxi Dispatch System

    Assemblyman Micah Kellner (Dist, 65-D) has released a report on the accessible taxi dispatch system in New York City.

    The June report, "Stranded: How the TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission) is Failing Wheelchair Users," criticizes the Taxi and Limousine Commission's Central Dispatch pilot program that has matched customers with accessible taxis using the 311 call center since July 2008.

    Kellner based his findings on 20 monitored calls to the system, and additional research. He concluded that accessible taxis have been subject to a more rigorous approval process than hybrid vehicles, the accessible dispatch program has not been well advertised, and service through the program is unreliable on nights and weekends and outside of Manhattan.

   Published in Able News. Click here to read the story.

Cell Phones Could Offer Travel Instructions to People with Cognitive Disabilities

  The same technology that drivers use to find their destinations could help people with learning or cognitive disabilities to exit a bus at the right stop.

    For people with developmental disabilities like Down syndrome and Asperger’s syndrome, learning when to get off the bus can be one of the most challenging parts of using mass transit. Researchers in Florida are working on a technological innovation to try to ease the process using cell phone location technology similar to Global Positioning Systems that provide directions to automobile drivers.

    Published on Transportation Access. Read the story.

Celebrating the Americans with Disabilities Act

   

    Disability rights activist Elaine Kolb (pictured) and about 30 other people celebrated the 19th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act yesterday with music, poetry and speeches in Central Park. 

    The landmark legislation prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in transportation as well as employment, access to government, commercial or public facilities, and telecommunications. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990.

    Published on Transportation Access.

    Read the story and view photos.

MTA Line Managers to Launch Elevator Outage Phone Line

    As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board of directors plans to reduce station staff through attrition to help balance its budget, the system’s line managers are re-allocating resources in attempt to provide better service in the case of elevator outages like the one that trapped Kitty Lunn (pictured.)

    As part of a new internal reorganization, line managers for the MTA’s New York City Transit division are making a series of changes to improve communication with customers who require elevators to travel by providing more timely information about service disruptions.

    Published on Transportation Access. Read the story.