Call-A-Ride's struggles leave disabled St. Louis-area passengers in the lurch

By Colleen Schrappen | St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS — Annette Nowakowski has been using Call-A-Ride since she moved to St. Louis more than a decade ago.

Nowakowski is blind. Metro Transit's Call-A-Ride, a curb-to-curb service for people with disabilities, allowed her to get to her job, go to church or meet friends for dinner. She rarely had trouble making a reservation, even when she called in the morning for a lift she needed that same evening.

That reliability has evaporated.

Metro Transit has been been hit hard by labor shortages over the past three years. In response, the agency trimmed its service area in April, excluding parts of southwest and far north St. Louis County. Trip denials have decreased 50% since then. And a $5,000 hiring bonus offered since July has quadrupled its typical number of driver trainees, inching it toward a complete slate of workers.

--------------------------

Link to original article (Metered Paywall): https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/call-a-rides-struggles-leave-disabled-st-louis-area-passengers-in-the-lurch/article_d877124a-5103-11ee-81d8-efad7a0b088d.html

--------------------------

But the progress hasn't gone far or fast enough, critics say. Long wait times, inconsistent scheduling and a lack of transparency from Metro, they argue, has severed a lifeline for people unable to navigate bus or light rail.

"It's like Call-A-Ride is the stepchild of the fixed route," said Nowakowski.

Now, three days' notice is almost always required to arrange a ride, even though compliance with federal Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines calls for day-ahead scheduling. Regular riders complain of inconveniences that make it difficult to plan their lives, budget their money and, sometimes, feel safe. Blaming those problems on a lack of employees is an incomplete story, they say.

Etefia Umana of the Central West End takes Call-A-Ride to and from his gym, but the drop-off and pickup times are so variable that he sometimes has to stretch his workouts over several hours or cram them into 30 minutes.

One day last month, Wilma Chestnut-House of St. John was supposed to be picked up after her sewing class in Bellefontaine Neighbors at 4:30 p.m. The van showed up at 5:30, a half-hour after the building had closed.

It took two hours for James Verde of south St. Louis to get to his chiropractor recently, a 20-minute drive by car. Verde, who deals with a host of complicated medical conditions, was exhausted by the time he arrived for his appointment. But alternatives such as Ubers or taxis quickly add up when you're getting by on disability income, he said. Sometimes it's easier to stay home.

"I'm just tired," said Verde. "I'm trapped."

'Not just a Metro problem'

Metro concedes that when it was fully staffed, the shared-transport system could accommodate more riders, and with less advance notice. Scheduling used to be more streamlined, too, with trip requests clustered at the beginning and end of the workday and to more centralized locations, like downtown.

That changed with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. Habits shifted, and the labor crisis strained Metro Transit in every direction. A deficit of bus drivers has prompted cutbacks several times since 2020, most recently this summer.

MetroLink is running with about three-quarters of the operators it needs. Overtime payments have ballooned. And vacancies at Call-A-Ride hover around 45%. As of June, 88 positions out of 201 were unfilled.

Cities across the U.S. are embroiled in similar struggles. Some communities, in places such as Michigan, California and Arizona, coordinate with a network of agencies to plug gaps in paratransit. In the St. Louis area, transportation options for disabled people are limited. Many ride-hailing vehicles are not wheelchair-accessible; a Medicaid-funded program is restricted to transportation to specific medical appointments.

"This is not just a Metro problem," said Chuck Stewart, executive director of Metro. "This is a local problem, a regional problem, a national problem."

A survey last year by the American Public Transportation Association of 117 transit agencies found that nearly three-fourths had to slash services or delay expansions because of worker shortages. More than 9 in 10 reported having difficulty filling openings.

The Call-A-Ride reductions severed access for 250 people who no longer live within its boundaries. Destinations outside the new borders — including Mercy Hospital South in St. Louis County — have been lost for everyone.

Keasha Orban of Hazelwood lives at the end of a long cul-de-sac that was bisected in the Call-A-Ride downsizing. Her home was trimmed out, but the other half of her street is still in. She can schedule rides, but then she has to walk almost a third of a mile to wait for the van in front of a neighbor's house.

The street, which has no sidewalks, is difficult to navigate for Orban, who is blind and recovering from knee surgery. She has put off doctor's appointments and tried to do her physical therapy exercises on her own to avoid trips. But that's come at a cost.

"Everything with my knee has been delayed," she said.

'It's killing the progress of the city'

Call-A-Ride was established in 1987 for St. Louis and St. Louis County. In the past year, its bright blue vans have served about 2,800 people.

Federal guidelines require paratransit to be available within three-quarters of a mile of a fixed line, during the same hours and days, and for no more than double the cost. A one-way Call-A-Ride fare is $2. The Americans with Disabilities Act outlines scheduling protocols, but generally, a one-hour window on both sides of the requested pickup time is considered acceptable.

Starting pay for Call-A-Ride drivers, at $17.85 an hour, is about $5 less than that of bus and light-rail drivers at Metro Transit. The margin widens with experience. An average van driver makes $19.32 an hour; bus drivers average $28.49 and MetroLink operators, $29.23.

When it was running with a full contingent of employees, Call-A-Ride recorded almost no trip denials, said General Manager Jeff Butler. People could phone a day in advance and consistently nab a seat. Prebooking was an option for folks who needed recurring rides so they didn't have to schedule one every day.

Prior to COVID, the agency provided between 1,800 and 2,000 daily trips, Butler said — double what it does today. Trip denials peaked in February, when Call-A-Ride was unable to fulfill 42% of 45,163 requests. By last month, denials had fallen to under 18% of 40,525 requests.

"We're getting there," Butler said.

Mark Detjen of west St. Louis County has been a Call-A-Ride user for almost a quarter century. Detjen, who is blind and has mobility limitations, took the vans everywhere — to meetings and work, for social outings and errands.

Since 2020, he has only successfully booked both legs of a round trip three times. Sometimes, he scrapes together money to pay for an Uber. But mostly, he skips whatever he was going to do.

"It really restricts your freedom," said Detjen, who lives alone.

The repercussions extend beyond individual inconveniences: Employers have to cover missed work hours. Health appointments are postponed. Money isn't spent at stores or restaurants.

"It's killing the progress of the city," Detjen said. "The city doesn't grow when you can't get around in it."

Filing complaints

When Metro announced its service cuts in March, disability rights advocates mobilized. Paraquad, a local agency that serves the disabled, hosts a weekly Zoom meeting to compile grievances and brainstorm solutions. A complaint, signed by a dozen representatives of religious groups and nonprofits, was filed with the U.S. Department of Justice in April. The organizations sent a similar letter to the Federal Transit Administration.

Among the criticisms: Scheduling is possible only by phone, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Call-A-Ride still requires cash payments, unlike the bus or MetroLink, for which tickets can be purchased through an app. Riders are expected to be ready 15 minutes before their pickup window starts, outside of FTA guidelines.

"It comes down to quality of life," said Jeanette Mott Oxford of Paraquad. "Can people with disabilities engage in a normal, happy life?"

In a June meeting with Metro Transit representatives, advocates including Oxford proposed bringing in outside consultants and allowing in-person attendance for the public at commissioners meetings for Bi-State Development, the parent agency for Metro Transit. They also discussed improving wages and benefits for drivers, who will be negotiating a new contract in January.

Barbara Sheinbein of west St. Louis County doesn't feel their concerns are being taken seriously. The driver shortage is a big problem, she said, but it's not the only problem.

Sheinbein, who is retired, uses Call-A-Ride to get to a pet adoption center in Olivette for her weekly volunteer gig "to cheer up the animals."

It takes perseverance. Her usual routine, she said, is calling at 7:30 a.m., redialing through 10 minutes of busy signals, taking a break and doing it all over again. If she waited until the phone line was free later in the day, nothing would be available.

"It's not like one thing is going to fix this," Sheinbein said.

Metro officials say that recent changes are aimed at dismantling barriers for users. Via, a micro ride-sharing program, is available in three small geographic zones in St. Louis County. That could grow, said Stewart, the executive director. Prebooking could return, and other innovations could be on the way — once the employment situation is resolved.

"The challenge is matching the available resources to our needs," he said. "We certainly understand the frustrations."

In coming months, the agency plans to expand a smartphone pilot program that would allow passengers to pay without cash. Better computer software and an updated call-in process that would reduce busy signals and scheduling headaches are on the horizon.

And hiring is headed in the right direction, Stewart said. Twenty prospective employees enrolled in Call-A-Ride's training program last month, and the agency is working through "a backlog of applicants."

Sheinbein acknowledges that the paratransit system was designed with good intent, to allow disabled people access to their community. But more than three decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, she is fed up with what seems like a plodding pace.

"As disabled people, we're supposed to be happy with whatever we get and just deal with it," Sheinbein said. "The real answer is a completely different system."

___

(c)2023 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at www.stltoday.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Daily News Briefing