Per WMATA:
Dupont Circle south entrance to close Wednesday, Feb. 1, for escalator replacement
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MetroAccess riders appear to have been subject to a mailshot over the past week, with postcards arriving to explain the new fares. This explanatory blurb was on the cards:
In light of WMATA‘s recent decision to implement “Conditional Eligibility” on MetroAccess riders, which will force many riders in time to have to use fixed-route transit, DC ParaTransit Info has started to take a closer look at the conditions of that system and its readiness to provide reliable safe transit for people with disabilities.  Image via Wikipedia One of the things we have noticed is the number of complaints online regarding the HVAC systems on MetroRail trains. This can be a critical issue for many disabled riders – heat especially can have an amplified deleterious effect on people, dependent on their disability. That’s not even examining the effects of excessive heat on able-bodied riders themselves. You would think a “trainer” would understand that the proper place to secure wheelchairs on vehicles are the “hardpoints”, the strongest attachment locations of a chair, wouldn’t you? On most wheelchairs, these hardpoints are the bars connecting the seat to the chassis cage. Usually 4 of them are to be found on wheelchairs, they are amongst the strongest components of any chair as they’re designed to keep the seat connected to the wheelbase in motion. While the database issues mentioned previously are continuing, with reports that the Silver Spring staff have been extremely busy today trying to work around unspecified problems performing trips, DC ParaTransit Info is wondering what could cause an IVR reminder call this evening (made to customers the night before to remind them of their upcoming trips) to abort at the beginning of the message, stating:
We’ve asked MetroAccess for more information, but we’re curious if this is related to the database issues, and more importantly – if this is indicative of a problem with IVR (and presumably, Trapeze) not being able to access/reference GPS data, what effect is this having on provisioning of trips? Given the complexity and size of MetroAccess operations, the integrity of the databases that “power” it on a day to day basis is a critical issue. We already witnessed the kind of chaos corrupted data can cause to the system – when MV Transit was importing data from the previous contractors, Logisticare, prior to taking over the contract, DC ParaTransit Info was sounding loud warnings to WMATA that there were major omissions and discrepancies in the database information being transferred. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, but the flawed database migration was noted as one of the reasons for the abysmal transition period that gained such negative attention at the beginning of MV’s term. |
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