New Look & Features, Same Purpose

It’s been over a year since we last posted to the site.  In that year, we saw many improvements to WMATA‘s MetroAccess service, and although problems still existed, we felt that the efforts towards accessibility by Christian Kent and Selene Faer Dalton-Kumins at WMATA were going to pay off.

Unfortunately, we’ve found in recent times that WMATA appears to be backsliding in the quality of accessibility for its disabled customers.  This has become evident both on fixed-route transit (MetroBus, MetroRail), and MetroAccess, the Metro DC area’s paratransit service operated by MV Transit.

More disquieting is the appearance of media releases from WMATA that seem to be returning to the “bad old days” of the time MV Transit took over the MetroAccess contract from Logisticare.  At that time, WMATA’s press releases attempted to position MetroAccess riders as simply complaining about losing “perks” or “entitlements”.

Deliberate or inadvertent, this came out as a ploy to garner support of the wider ridership to support the abysmal level of service disabled customers were receiving at the time.  DC ParaTransit Info strenuously objected to the tone and characterizations coming out of WMATA’s press office then, and eventually they ceased.

So it’s worrisome that the same sort of tactics are being employed once more during the current WMATA budget debate.  As an example, this quote is from a recent Washington Post article by Ann Scott Tyson:

The service offered by Metro is more generous than what is required by the Americans With Disabilities Act, and Metro’s proposal to restrict it would bring it closer to those standards.

The subtext of this is that reductions in service, and fare increases, should be supported since the service, according to the article, surpasses the legal requirement, right?

The article fails to point out that WMATA in recent years had to settle with the disabled community in a lawsuit for failing to meet the ADA requirements to begin with – a situation that has crept back in recent months.

The article also fails to point out the factors of MetroAccess service that go beyond the ADA requirements, and more importantly why those features of the service were added and continue – since many of them relate to the safety of the riders themselves.

In light of this renewed attempt to play on the prejudices and outrage of the able-bodied ridership to gain support for once more attempting to reduce, degrade (and in some cases deny) disabled people in the Metro DC area their legal, and indeed moral, levels of independence, equal to that enjoyed by the able-bodied ridership of WMATA’s services, provided by WMATA in order to finance services solely for the benefit of able-bodied customers, DC ParaTransit Info is now coming back full bore.

We will highlight the deficiencies of MetroAccess, MetroBus, and MetroRail in their provision of accessible services to the disabled (and elderly) ridership of the Metro system, and we will press hard for those deficiencies to be addressed in all fora available to us.

To that end, the site has been redesigned and is now even more capable of bringing to light both the bad and good of paratransit and accessible transport in the DC Metro Area, including direct feeds into Virtual Worlds where the disabled community have made a strong presence for themselves, and other social media outlets.

As long as WMATA insists on trying to persuade the able-bodied ridership that we are somehow fighting for entitlements, and glosses casually over how those perceived entitlements are a necessity for our independence, we as a community need to demand our rights to independence in transportation, and our right to equal treatment and availability of transportation options in parity to those offered to able-bodied users of the system.

As a community, we understand the budget crisis facing WMATA, and are more than happy to work with them to reduce costs.  However, we will not sit idly by and let WMATA degrade the services offered to disabled riders in the name of budget cuts without demanding able-bodied riders too see a decrease in services.

If disabled riders lose their independence in the name of giving able-bodied riders glossy pamphlets at stations, it’s wrong.

If disabled riders are disenfranchised in the name of shiny signage in front of stations, that’s wrong.

DC ParaTransit Info will continue to highlight the inequalities in the system until disabled customers are granted the same ability the able-bodied ridership will enjoy despite the budget crisis WMATA currently faces – the ability to travel where they want, when they want, how they want, and have a transportation system that will help them get there.

Independence is not an entitlement.  Independence is not a perk.

Independence is our right.

We hope that we can continue to work with WMATA to address the failings of the system – we have been privileged to stay in contact with Mr Kent and Ms Faer Dalton-Kumins for several years now, and believe they have the community’s interests in mind.

However, we cannot say the same about WMATA itself, given they still can’t even be bothered to put little signs over wheelchair bays denoting them as such on the 5000 series cars despite telling us for over 4 years they were looking into it, we now have no faith that WMATA will take on board and implement any improvements that are necessities for disabled riders unless they are forced to do so by public outrage at the level of service they provide, not what they claim to provide.

Yes, WMATA is facing a budget crisis – so is everyone else.  WMATA’s services to the disabled community enable us to have independence, to get to places of employment, to go out, to enjoy the benefits of independence the system provides.  A cutback that might be annoying or frustrating to an able-bodied rider could result in a disabled rider losing their job (which has happened in the past), or not being able to attend vitally important medical treatments (which has also happened in the past).

We call on WMATA to start thinking of these knock on effects when it starts claiming “entitlement” and willy-nilly degrades transportation options for the disabled community.

WMATA wants the world to think that they provide us with service “above” the ADA requirements.  We’re here to tell the world of the times when they don’t even meet those basics, and certainly not, in practical terms, provide greater as they claim to.

To that end, we invite members of the disabled community to come here and tell us about the failures of the service WMATA provides, but also the successes.  Had a great bus driver?  Tell us.  Had a bad tempered station manager?  Tell us.

We also invite interested parties – WMATA, Members of Congress, Members of the Metro Board, Members of the DC Council, to participate.

And as always, DC ParaTransit Info will preserve the anonymity of contributors if they desire, give experience of past retaliation against MetroAccess drivers and others who spoke out against the policies they were forced to comply with that resulted in failure of the service.

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