WMATA’s Board meeting on November 9th includes budget items for FY2007 relating to MetroAccess.

DC ParaTransit Info notes with great concern this item in the “blurb” produced for the board:

Revise MetroAccess eligibility process to mainstream riders to transit

We’re back to the concept of tightening eligibility criteria once more to try to reduce the eligible ridership numbers. WMATA once more is making decisions based on their financial needs and not the community’s transportation needs, disenfranchising users from MetroAccess use. Euphemistically referred to by WMATA as “Demand Management”, this is a case of more management to artificially reduce demand.

More information is available on WMATA’s web site at http://content.wmata.com/board_gm/board_docs/110906_CParatransit.pdf

DC ParaTransit Info calls on WMATA to remember the words of Dan Tangerlini recently:

“The original deal was focused on cost reduction, not service provision.” (Washington Post: Disabled transit Data Was Misstated).

It appears that the “new” deal, under new management, is once more concentrating on cost reduction, and once more demonstrates that the disabled community is little more than an overhead in WMATA’s eyes, one they will try to reduce as much as possible while wasting money on cosmetic “improvements” that do little more than tell us to use something other than MetroAccess.