mindstalk | Paratransit (Reply)

I did a bunch of reading on this yesterday, I think sparked by a NUMTOTS post on yet another microtransit idea. Figured I’d share.

What is paratransit?

In the US, a public transit service for the disabled, particularly those who can’t use regular fixed-route transit. Typically it is delivered via vans with wheelchair lifts, you have had to schedule a ride a day in advance, they have wide windows, and you may have to share the ride. My cursory impression is that UK services have been similar.

How good is paratransit?

Opinions seem to include “it’s great because it lets me leave my house at all”, “it’s terribly inconvenient to schedule and you can’t rely on it for appointments or jobs”, or both. Understandably enough. Wide pickup windows, and trips that can be unpredictably long as you detour for other riders, suck.

Why is paratransit?

In the US, it’s now because of federal regulation, rooted in the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act.) You can read the regulations here; they’re fairly readable. Basically, any public transit agency has to also provide the service, for an area 3/4 of a mile from its fixed routes, during its transit hours; it has to provide rides by the next day; it can only charge twice as much as the regular fare; and it has to pick you up within an hour of your requested time (one hour before or after – so a two hour window.) I note no guarantee of when you arrive.

Also note that this is an unfunded mandate: the regulation requires a service, but there’s no automatic funding for it. Which matters because…

How expensive is paratransit?

Very. Wikipedia says ‘the average cost of providing a paratransit trip is “an estimated three and a half times more expensive than the average cost of $8.15 to provide a fixed-route trip’, and gives examples of over $40/trip in 2010 Maryland, $33 in 2008 Boston, $64 for NYC. In 2020, ProPublica said NYC’s MTA was paying $86 per ride. A pilot program let some riders get subsidized taxi rides, at $40/ride to the agency, but costing it more in total because riders used that a lot more.

So why does it suck so much?

When I first heard of paratransit and its “next-day” scheduling requirement, I suspected that we don’t care about the disabled and make only the most grudging accommodations for them. And I wouldn’t rule that out! But on the other hand you’d think that agencies would have some concern for their budgets; if they all have expensive paratransit, maybe it’s just expensive to provide.

And, well, it’s a form of microtransit. Or “demand-responsive transit” or “flexible transit” or a bunch of other phrases. And that’s worth a whole separate post, but basically microtransit inherently sucks.

What about that $40/ride taxi program? Doesn’t that suggest the MTA being deliberately terrible with its regular paratransit to keep demand down? Well, maybe. OTOH I doubt people in wheelchairs were using those taxis. Paratransit has to be particularly accommodating, on top of being microtransit. So it’s not like MTA could entirely replace the vans with taxi rides. And presumably the MTA’s budget is handed down from above; if taxis cost half as much per ride but are used 3 times as much, that’s 50% more money that has to come from somewhere, probably fixed-route transit.