Throughout the pandemic, as a way to protect riders, the MTA suspended shared cars and vans, but, starting in early July, the agency began phasing in shared rides for its Access-a-Ride users again. Now, with the rise of the highly transmissible delta variant in our region, many users and advocates are asking the MTA to return to the policy of one user per vehicle.
“People with the most severe disabilities who use Access-a-Ride have no options, and that is a far more compromised space than the subway or bus,” Ruth Lowenkron, director of the Disability Justice Program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, said.
Lowenkron has written two letters to the MTA asking them to suspend shared rides for now on behalf of her group and four others, and also met with MTA officials about the issue.
She said at one meeting an MTA official suggested that Access-a-Ride users are pushing this issue now because they liked not having to share rides with people during the pandemic, and that it’s not primarily about safety from COVID-19.
“On a personal level, I found it shocking, “ Lowenkron said, “My response is, that may well be true [some people have] a goal of eliminating shared rides, although it is neither here nor there. You don't talk about playing politics when you’re facing a pandemic of proportions we’ve never seen in the world.”
Curtis Cost, an Access-a-Ride user, recently called for a ride from his home in the Mosholu neighborhood in the Bronx to Jackson Heights. He described it as a “nightmare” as he arrived not only three hours late, but was crammed into a car shoulder-to=shoulder with another man.
“How, in light of all this stuff that’s going on, would they think think in their great wisdom that it was a good idea to bunch people up like this?” Cost said.
Cost said on another recent trip he had to fight with the driver and call the Access-a-Ride office after the driver attempted to squeeze three people in a regular 4-door sedan.
“We continue to be diligent about making sure our customers are safe when using Access-A-Ride,” Andrei Berman, a spokesperson for the MTA wrote in a statement. “Masks are required when riding and we strongly encourage people to get vaccinated as well.”
Two other companies that suspended shared rides during the pandemic, the app-based taxi services Uber and Lyft, have not resumed shard rides in New York. A spokesperson for Lyft said the company is slowly bringing shared rides back in other cities, starting with Chicago, Philadelphia, and Denver.
Dr. Sharon McLennon-Wier, executive director of Center For Independence of the Disabled, New York, is blind and uses Access-a-Ride in New York City and the paratransit program in Weschester County. McLennon-Wier said the MTA should be aware that due to various health conditions not everyone can be vaccinated.
“Therefore the risk potential of acquiring the virus is stronger for those who are unable to,” she said. While she admitted it’s likely more cost effective for the transit agencies to have multiple riders in a single vehicle, if they’re putting multiple people in a small car or van that’s making multiple stops across boroughs, it’s a risk.
“That person is on the vehicle for a long period of time where exposure is further increased by the length of time you’re in this small, closed space,” McLennon-Wier said.
And there’s no guarantee drivers who pick up paratransit riders are vaccinated either.
Drivers in New York City who are licensed through the Taxi and Limousine Commission are neither municipal or state workers, and are not required to be vaccinated or submit weekly tests. While MTA employees will be required to either get a vaccination or submit weekly COVID tests by Labor Day, the Access-A-Ride drivers are third-party contract workers, and therefore don’t fall under the MTA’s mandate either.
