From The NY Times:Henry Suss, a 93-year-old retired engineer with a hearing aid in each ear, has a hard time getting around. Since suffering a heart attack in 2006, he has been unable to walk more than a block without pain in his legs and feet. So about twice a week, he calls a day in advance to arrange a trip — to a restaurant, to a concert or to one of his many doctors’ appointments — through Access-a-Ride, the city’s door-to-door paratransit service for the elderly and the disabled.
Mr. Suss, who lives at the Hallmark, an assisted-living and retirement center in Battery Park City, pays $2 a ride. But while all transit riders can expect a fare hike this year — the Metropolitan Transportation Authority conducted public hearings last week on the proposal — the 123,000 users of Access-a-Ride may well face a much steeper increase, according to Kevin Ortiz, an M.T.A. spokesman. Under two of the four plans that the authority is considering to close its budget gap, the Access-a-Ride fare would more than double, to $4.50 or even $5.
“If I have to pay, I have to pay,” Mr. Suss said about the possibility of a much higher fare. “But I resent that when my income is going down, everything else is going up.”
Asked why Access-a-Ride customers would shoulder such a comparatively steep increase, Mr. Ortiz said the guidelines of the Americans With Disabilities Act allow paratransit fares to run up to twice the base fare. He added that the authority is one of the few mass transit agencies in the country that doesn’t already charge double
the base fare; the paratransit systems in Atlanta, Miami, Denver and Philadelphia do. All other aspects of the paratransit service, he added, will remain the same.
Jan Zimmerman, the program director at Rivington House, a Medicaid-financed
health care program on the Lower East Side for adults with H.I.V. or AIDS, said that of the program’s 65 clients, 8 depend on Access-a-Ride for transportation.Rivington House reimburses them for the fare, she said, explaining, “The priority is to get the client here for service.” Rivington House will continue to reimburse clients even if the fare rises, she said, but this would require cuts in meal service, supplies or the occasional trips to a movie or a museum.
One 45-year-old client, who asked that his name be withheld because he was H.I.V. positive, said he used Access-a-Ride several times a week to travel to Rivington House from his home in Queens Village.
“To get around from place to place,” said the man, who has had the use of only one hand since suffering a stroke in 1994, “I depend on it.”