Paratransit fare increase leaves riders with little spare change

MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Seven dollars and fourteen cents.

That's all Patricia Pratt has left this month after paying her bills, paying for doctor's visits and buying her monthly ADA paratransit pass.

The 54-year-old has difficulty getting around. Rheumatoid arthritis has left her with no cartilage in her knees. High blood pressure and diabetes have made regular doctor's appointments a necessity.

When the cost of the Chicago monthly pass doubled from $75 to $150 on Feb. 1, Pratt doled out the $150, but at a high price. She made ends meet this month, but she isn't sure that her limited income of $630 a month will stretch that far for March.

"I just can't afford it," Pratt said. "I don't know what to do. I really don't know what I'm going to do. That means I'm going to have to stay in the house [in March]."

Pratt isn't the only paratransit rider considering switching to single-ride tickets, which remained $2.25 in Chicago.

Sales of the monthly pass dropped by 79 percent this month, from an average of 700 passes sold to about 150 passes sold in February, according to Pace.

"We believe it has reduced pass sales, but we've seen more of a movement to single-ride tickets," said Pace Deputy Executive Director of External Relations Rocky Donahue. "That's the trend we're seeing. They haven't left the system, they've just gone to purchasing a different fare medium."

Pace decided to double the fare for the monthly Chicago pass and not the others because its sales did not meet the state-mandated farebox recovery ratio of 10 percent. By state law, each transit agency must cover a certain portion of its operating costs with rider fares.

Providing door-to-door services costs an estimated $30 per paratransit trip, according to Pace. Only 2 percent of eligible ADA riders purchase the pass, but they account for 20 to 25 percent of trips on the system.

"I'm very empathetic to the situation," Donahue said. "I'm very empathetic to individual stories, but at the end of the day as a government agency and having laws that we must follow, this was strictly to comply with the state law."

Empathy isn't necessarily what Chicago paratransit groups want. They want action.

Members of Independent Movement of Paratransit Riders for Unity, Vehicles, Equality and other concerned citizens originally sought to delay the fare increase when they filed an injunction against the Regional Transportation Authority and several officials on Jan. 29.

The request for an injunction was denied, but the issue is set to go before a judge again on March 18.

Dr. Ayo Maat, coordinator of IMPRUVE, is still battling the fare increase. She has collected about 100 affidavits from paratransit riders and will continue to collect more until the court date.

When the time came to buy a monthly pass, Maat boycotted. She began relying on free Medi-car service, non-emergency transportation assistance for disabled riders.

Pace is planning on conducting several informational meetings throughout the city in the first two weeks of March. The purpose of the meetings is not to discuss the monthly pass, but to inform the public of the changes to services set to take effect the last weekend in March.

Improvements will include better on-time performance, shorter travel times for passengers, more vehicles on the street and quicker response times by phone operators, according to Pace.

Riders can partly attribute the service improvements to the reclassification of service areas in Chicago, Donahue said. The city will be split up into three zones: north, central and south.

While there are now three paratransit carriers to pick from, riders will now have one carrier designated to each zone. Two additional carriers will join in, providing services for subscription trips, or standing appointments made by riders needing to get somewhere regularly.

The problem - as many paratransit riders see it - is that riders traveling from the north to the south zones will now need to transfer.

Both Maat and Pratt fear they will have to wait out in the cold or in unfamiliar neighborhoods for their transfers. Donahue said passengers would be allowed to wait in the vehicle until the transfer arrivers.

Ninety-nine percent of trips will not require a transfer, Donahue said. For the 1 percent that will have to transfer, subscription trips may be offered to those taking the trip regularly, so they won't have to transfer.

Regardless of the slated service improvements, Pratt is more concerned with all the sacrifices she will have to make if she continues to purchase trips.

Visiting her elderly mother on the South Side, taking a video editing class or even stepping out to enjoy a hamburger with friends are luxuries she may have to give up next month.

"It's just the basics of life I'm dealing with just to keep my house running," Pratt said. "Just to enjoy the little things that I do have, it's costing me money."