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Paratransit Riders Face Challenges on Long Island

Notification of April bus bay changes in Hempstead; Nassau County's Able-Ride service has seen changes as well.

In recent weeks, paratransit riders on Long Island have reportedly encountered significant challenges, as one county transit operator has made substantial changes to its paratransit service while another seriously considered a fare hike.

According to Newsday, Veolia, which took over Nassau County’s bus operations on January 1, has not implemented formal cuts to the Able-Ride program, but a May 1 efficiency measure has taken a toll on the paratransit service. Since that date, the company has sought to combine Able-Ride customers’ trips when possible, and the impact has been significant: “[w]ith passengers now waiting for fellow riders to get picked up and dropped off, trips have become far less direct, and much longer,” reports Alfonso Castillo. Castillo’s article also points out that the Americans with Disabilities Act “calls for paratransit trips to take about the same amount of time as it would door-to-door for a fixed bus route customer.”

In late 2011, when Nassau signed a contract with Veolia to privatize the county’s bus system, a memorandum of understanding held that the new bus operator would maintain service levels to areas served by Able-Ride for at least three years. While Veolia is right to seek efficiencies, they should not be achieved at the expense of rider convenience or the agreement between Veolia and Nassau County from late last year.

After initial blowback from elected officials and paratransit advocates, Veolia has reportedly worked to improve the situation and has “pulled back” a bit from the changes. It is unclear how the company will adapt service provisions moving forward, however.

Meanwhile, in Suffolk, Suffolk County Accessible Transportation (SCAT) paratransit riders narrowly escaped a proposed $1 fare hike after the legislature tabled the measure yesterday. The fare hike was being considered as a way to mitigate the county’s $530 million deficit and the change would have amounted to an increase of over $500 per year for weekday round trip commuters. The fare increase would have hit riders particularly hard, since many SCAT customers live on limited, fixed incomes.

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[…] led by Legislator Jay Schneiderman, tabled a potential fare hike for paratransit riders, who could have seen a $1 […]

Miracle
Miracle
11 years ago

My disabled son has always used Able ride to get to every activity or day program . about a month ago or two, able ride has made my son very late to his arrival time. I am not referring to being late by 1/2 hour rather by 1 or sometimes 2 hrs. I made several complaints about this situation. The first two weeks the stated that they recently installed a new system to help them organize the trips better. After a few additional weeks they apparently changed my son’s pick up prescription and include the wrong location of drop off and changed his pick up time. After that complaint they informed us that we needed to wait a few weeks to get that problemed fixed. Currently, the problem has not been fixed. Example: my son’s pick up time is 7:30am to be at his program by 9am(from valley stream to west bury).Currently, he is lucky if they pick him up by 8:30 am and gets to his program before 11am. They have also forgotten my son’s pick up two times. I was lucky that the first time I was with him during the evening @ the victory games. They ended picking us up after 2 hrs later only because I (well you know what)! The second time was at my home. They just completely forgot his pick up. As a parent you want to give them (your child) the ability to be independent but I constantly need to worry about my son making it on time or will he be forgotten and I am not with him. I must say the drivers are very nice but I faile to understand why the company changed the systems if it was working well. I can not believe that they purchased a more advanced system to help them save money because I personally can tell you it is not working for the customers.

Sam Handler
Sam Handler
11 years ago

Miracle,

thanks for sharing your family’s story — Tri-State is interested in hearing more about it. If you’d like to get in touch, email me at sam <[at]> tstc.org.

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