Disabled Commuters’ Suit Demands Better Van Service

Disabled commuters sued in federal court Thursday, demanding improvements in shuttle services used by 40,000 people with disabilities in Los Angeles County.

The lawsuit, filed by the Western Law Center for Disability Rights, the ACLU and Protection and Advocacy Inc. cited accounts that commuters who use wheelchairs have been left stranded in dangerous places because shuttle vans arrived hours late or not at all.

Named as defendants in the class-action suit are the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Access Services Inc., a nonprofit agency under contract to provide transit services to the disabled.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, cities with regular bus lines must provide comparable services for the disabled.

To comply with that requirement, Access Services operates a fleet of about 450 specially equipped vans and contracts with taxi companies for an additional 1,500 vehicles.

Rides must be booked in advance but having a reservation does not guarantee a timely pickup, the suit says.

Nadine Flores, one of six plaintiffs, said she has been using Access Services since 1996 to travel to and from her job. Because of frequent delays, she said, she has had to wait alone for hours at a time on a deserted street, sometimes in the cold. Flores has spinal muscular atrophy.

Stefanie Michihara, who has cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair, said she is consistently late to her college classes because of driver tardiness.

Johnny Bolagh, who is blind and has diabetes, anemia and kidney problems, said Access Service drivers are often late by more than an hour and sometimes fail to show up at all.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said Access Service’s own numbers show that the company has failed to provide services comparable to regular public transit. Although Access Service reports an on-time rate of about 90%, it said the MTA’s on-time rate is 99.51%.

But Richard DeRock, executive director of Access Services, said the MTA figure cited in the suit is misleading. The MTA’s actual on-time rate is about 60%, he said. An MTA spokesman confirmed that, saying the 99.51% figure refers to on-time departures from bus yards.

“We would be in heaven if our on-time rate at bus stops was anything like that,” said spokesman Marc Littman.

“I’m not trying to deny that there are people who have had real problems,” said DeRock, “but we have consistently tried to address those concerns and improve our service to the community.”

DeRock questioned the timing of the lawsuit, noting that it came two days after the Federal Transit Administration threw out a complaint against Access Services over alleged service deficiencies.

In a letter to the Western Law Center for Disability Rights, the federal agency said it had found that Access Service’s on-time performance had improved from 73% in 1993 to 93% this year, during a period in which total ridership increased more than tenfold.

The percentage of no-shows by shuttle vans also declined, the letter said. The rate of missed trips was 6% in 1997-98, 0.9% in 1998-99 and now stands at 0.4%, according to the agency, a branch of the federal Department of Transportation.

Access Services receives about 70% of its funding from the federal government and about 18% from the MTA. The rest comes from the state of California and from fares, which range from $1.50 to $4 a ride.