When the MTA announced an on-demand e-hailing app in 2017 for paratransit riders with disabilities or health conditions, it promised the real-time, GPS-based system for booking and tracking trips would “bring significant improvements to the Paratransit experience.” Riders could grab a yellow or green cab through the app without booking ahead of time.
But for the past two months, as the pandemic subsides and users and the general public emerge from their homes, riders tell Gothamist the service has become unreliable.
Users who could once count on a taxi arriving in minutes report waiting up to two and-a-half hours. Riders describe missing church services and doctor’s appointments, and fear being stranded if they go out and can’t catch a cab back home.
The MTA blames the decline in available cabs for Access-A-Ride on the increase in people using the apps Curb, Arro, and Limosys, the three companies with MTA contracts.
Eman Rimawi, the Access-a-Ride organizer and coordinator with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, is one of 805 active users out of 1,200 enrolled in the e-hail on demand program. She said the MTA confirmed to her that an increase in users led to the decline in available taxis, suggesting users toggle between the three available apps to try to find a taxi.
“I’m concerned about where this is heading,” she said. Rimawi expects to go back to her office in midtown Manhattan in the next month or so and worries demand for taxis will keep rising as many people may avoid mass transit. “It only seems like it’s going to escalate.”
The Access-A-Ride users enrolled in the program can hail a taxi using the apps Curb, Arro, and Limosys, and pay the same $2.75 fare as a single subway or bus ride. The MTA pays these participating companies a flat rate based on distance traveled. Users say when they book the trip they can see the flat rate the company is paid.
Christy Cruz, 39, who recently booked a trip from her East Harlem home at 126th Street to go to a dentist appointment at East 24th Street noticed the cost of the total trip was $15. A trip on the same route with Lyft would cost about $28.
An MTA spokesperson said the rate the MTA pays the app companies hasn’t changed since 2017.
Cruz is also one of the users who claimed she missed a recent appointment because no driver would pick her up. She said she tried to book a car at 8:30 a.m. on a different date to ensure she made a 10 a.m. appointment at David’s Bridal to be fitted for a wedding dress. The car didn’t come until 10 a.m.
“Most drivers say transit has cut the cost of the trips and so therefore that’s what’s making it difficult for drivers to decide whether they want to take the trip or not,” Cruz said.
But the MTA disputed this.
“The notion that ‘the program’ is unreliable is misplaced – wait times are a reflection of the entire e-hail industry for all customers, not just those in the MTA-subsidized paratransit pilot,” MTA spokesperson Shams Tarek wrote in a statement. “The MTA does not operate the private e-hail industry.”
Cruz is working from home now, but expects to have to return to her office at a health care facility in downtown Brooklyn this summer and worries about the reliability of the program. She could lose her job if she doesn’t have a consistent way to get to work on time everyday.
The MTA had planned to curtail the program before the pandemic, citing the high costs of subsidizing taxi rides. But it put those changes on hold indefinitely.
