Palm Beach reinstates transportation for its disabled citizens

From The Palm Beach Post:

Six days after cutting van service for the disabled, the Palm Beach County Commission reversed itself Oct. 6 amid complaints that it stranded about 100 residents in dire need of public transportation.

County commissioners voted 6-0, with Commissioner Jess Santamaria absent, to resume paying for the Palm Tran Connection shuttles through Jan. 31, reversing a $750,000 budget cutback the board agreed to last month.

Barbara Peters, a 79-year-old Jupiter resident who could no longer go to the Lighthouse for the Blind, was so happy about Tuesday's reversal that she was choking up.

"I couldn't even fathom that the people in Tequesta and Jupiter just couldn't use it at all," she said. "It didn't make any sense."

The vote came two days after a Palm Beach Post article about hardships caused by the service cut, which took effect Oct. 1. Officials said the service now would resume in a day or two.

The Connection shuttles provide door-to-door van service for disabled and elderly residents who are outside of the agency's main service areas and who aren't considered to be on a medical- or job-related trip. The service cuts affected those living west of Florida's Turnpike and north of Donald Ross Road, resulting in about 300 fewer trips a day for the shuttles.

In addition to raising the fare for a one-way ride on the remaining Connection service from $2 to $3, the county eliminated half of its $10 million budget for the state's Transportation Disadvantaged program, which allows patients from out of the Connection zone to receive shuttle service.

The county did raise its Americans With Disabilities Act budget from $14.5 million to nearly $17 million, believing that some people who were being shuttled under the Transportation Disadvantaged program were also eligible under the national disabilities act program. Those people, however, live within the zone.

A crowd of more than 30 people packed the commission chambers today, in hopes of convincing commissioners to restore funding for the program. Only one person spoke before commissioners decided to reconsider the cuts.

"We have the ability here as a county commission to look at things to help people who can't help themselves," Commissioner Burt Aaronson said. "Let's not deny the people that need us."

Commissioner Karen Marcus said the service could trim expenses by better coordinating its trips, adding that she was unaware that so many people would be affected by the cut. "I was never told that it was going to be that much of an impact," Marcus said.

County managers plan to ask the school district to help pick up some of the tab. Many disabled students use the vans to get to and from school, they said.

Karen Cox, whose 25-year-old son uses the service to go to the Palm Beach Habilitation Center, said she Tuesday's decision was a "big sigh of relief."

"Maybe they just had no idea who it was going to hurt - all these elderly people that couldn't go couldn't go to their Alzheimer's clinic, or the Lighthouse for the Blind people," Cox said.

"I'm sure they didn't even give it a thought," she said. "With my experience the handicapped and elderly are the first to get cut, society views them as not as important as everybody else, and I don't think they thought about the ramifications to people like that."