DC ParaTransit Info

The first meeting of the Washington Clients Care Group convened this past Saturday morning, March 18th, at the Wheaton Community Center. This meeting represented the first meeting of MetroAccess riders to meet at a location that was not at Metro Headquarters.

The meeting, organized by MetroAccess riders for MetroAccess riders, had a turn-out of over 60 riders, caregivers and drivers. Mike Antique, representing WMATA’s MetroAccess Department; Inez Evans and Nikki Frenney from MV Transportation; as well as Aaron Rich representing Montgomery County’s County Executive Douglas Duncan; and Ms. Karen McManus from Congressman Chris Van Hollen’s office and were also in attendance.

This is a copy of the latest service announcement that is being posted in MetroAccess vehicles, scanned and transferred online by DC ParaTransit Info to increase the accessible formats such announcements are available in.

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We’re continuing the transition to the new MetroAccess service provider, MV Transportation. As promised, we’re giving you an update on the transition.
Here’s the latest news:

• To improve MetroAccess service, Metro’s Board of Directors has authorized the purchase of 22 additional vehicles and installation of navigation and communications equipment (global positioning systems, onboard cameras and radios) in 77 of our existing vehicles. We’ll let you know when the vehicles and equipment arrive.

WMATA’s web site contains a press release advising of delays this saturday (March 25th 2006) due to the National Marathon.

WMATA advises that MetroAccess riders in the District and Prince George’s County may experience delays because of the road closures, and encourages riders to schedule their trips later in the day because of the expected road closures.

According to the information on WMATA’s site, the Marathon will begin at around 7am, and is expected to end around 2pm.

Given that WMATA has stated to DC ParaTransit Info it considers burying notification of the FY2007 Proposed Budget meeting deep within their site to be “adequate” notification whilst not mentioning it in their news pages, we note with great amusement the appearance, a day after the event, on the news section of WMATA’s site a press release soliciting comments and questions via email.

We regret that WMATA seems to have made sure that the MetroAccess ridership, through lack of effective notification of this meeting, were unable to face the Board to ask their questions or make comments in person.

DC ParaTransit Info has been informed that one of the drivers who spoke up at the Forum held Saturday March 18th has effectively been made functionally unemployed.  The driver, an employee of Challenger, is reported to have not been assigned any manifests since the meeting, in retaliation for having done so.

When we toured the MetroAccess call center in February, we mentioned to MV executives that one of the obstacles they faced was the potential fears of employees to speak out, given that this is Washington DC where such things usually end up being detrimental to someone’s career.

The Washington Post reports that WMATA’s Interim General Manager, Mr Dan Tangherlini, is pressing for the appointment of an Inspector General with oversight of Metro operations, including MetroAccess.

The article states that the WMATA Board is in favour of the plan, and we agree - independant oversight of WMATA operations is necessary given the way it has been managed in the past. It will need an independant eye kept on it as it struggles to make up for past mistakes, which last year alone according to the post resulted in the loss of over $1 billion in railcar and elevator contracts alone.

The DC Examiner reports that Arlington’s STAR Transit System riders, the county’s ParaTransit service, may be facing the first price increase in 15 years.

The Arlington County Board will be considering raising the one-way trip fare, currently $2.00 by an additional 50 cents at a public hearing to be held March 30th 2006.

This increase will effectively bring the cost of STAR rides to the same level as that currently charged MetroAccess riders, $2.50 per trip, however it’s worth noting that this means the round trip cost will effectively increase by $1.00 in total.

The Washington Post’s “Regional Briefing” page today notes that:

The Metro transit authority plans to hold an information session on its proposed budget from 7 to 9 p.m. today at its headquarters in downtown Washington.

Metro board members and senior managers will answer questions and listen to concerns. The information session, at the Metro Board Room, 600 Fifth St. NW, will be preceded by an open house at 6:30 p.m.

Metro asks that people who want to speak at the session sign up by e-mail at public-hearing-testimony@wmata.com or by sending a fax to 202-962-1133 by 2 p.m. today. Speakers should submit a written copy of their comments at the session.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Metro Board has finally approved MV Transportation’s request, made at the start of the contract, for over $1 Million in additional funds. This request, to outfit legacy vehicles remaining in the fleet from the Logisticare days, had been originally rejected by the Board.

Whilst WMATA tries to spin this into the Board making positive moves to try to resolve the issues facing MetroAccess, it’s more accurately Metro having to once more backtrack on itself, and this decision would have been better served if WMATA had listened to the experience of the contractors it had hired to operate the service back in January.

DC ParaTransit attended the MetroAccess sub-Committee meeting of the RAC, which met on Wednesday March 15. We felt that, since the agenda for this meeting allowed time for public comment, it was the next logical step after the public fora held on March 13. The community’s voices were heard - now what was going to be done with the issues that were raised?