Jul 16, 2015 6 min read

A Washington Rides passenger who was left stranded for hours last summer until a paratransit vehicle from the Mon Valley could be sent to make a 2 1/2-block trip to her home gave the Washington County commissioners a 16-point list of what she sees as the agency’s most common problems and asked them to make changes in the administration of local paratransit.

A Tri-County Access van equipped to transport passengers in wheelchairs made a 28 1/2-mile trek from Donora to Washington in August to take Lisa Foltz from a North Main Street personal care home to her apartment at the Washington Arbors high-rise on North College Street. She said she was unable to make the trip on her own in her manually operated wheelchair because of the steep terrain.

Foltz used a motorized wheelchair to travel to the Courthouse Square office building Thursday morning to address the commissioners. Spurring her public comment was a situation late last month when she was hospitalized during a weekend because ofa severe reaction to medication that caused her mouth to blister.

She had difficulty speaking, and she needed to cancel a previously scheduled paratransit trip early on the morning of June 29, before the Washington Rides office and reservation center was open for business. Foltz, dealing with an answering service, said she got a run-around and had to make several phone calls before accomplishing the cancellation by demanding to speak with a Washington Rides supervisor who was on call. It was important to Foltz to notify Washington Rides of her cancellation because paratransit patrons are subject to suspension of service if they are no-shows for scheduled trips.

“Rhetoric and lip-service needs to stop and some positive restructuring, not just a merger, (needs to) take place,” Foltz wrote in a four-page list to the commissioners.

Sheila Gombita, executive director of the Washington County Transportation Authority, which recently merged with Washington City Transit, was not present at Thursday’s meeting but she said earlier this month that she realizes those who call after hours or on weekends are at the mercy of the answering service, which has “constant turnover.

“Hopefully, something like that won’t occur again. I completely understand. It’s frustrating,” she said.

If a driver makes a trip to fetch someone who attempted to cancel but was unable to talk with someone who could change the driver’s passenger manifest, Washington Rides “won’t penalize someone for something they did not have any control over,” Gombita said.

A check of websites for other paratransit services – all larger than the Washington Rides system – show features such as a dedicated cancellation phone line. Gombita said an interactive voice response system, which Washington Rides does not have, can call to confirm or cancel scheduled trips.

Foltz also told the commissioners, “As the merger has now taken place, this an excellent time to re-evaluate Washington Rides’ service and structure.” She gave the board a list of suggested changes, one of which is forming a policy-making board of paratransit stakeholders, including passengers, senior citizen centers, advocacy groups and representatives of the medical community such as kidney dialysis centers, doctors’ offices, nursing homes and hospital out-patient facilities.

The state Department of Transportation requires public transit agencies to have advisory committees, and the authority’s transportation advisory committee will be meeting in August, either at the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation or the new, intermodal transportation center on East Chestnut Street near North Main. “She’s certainly welcome to attend that,” Gombita said of Foltz. Also, the transportation authority board is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Aug. 4, at temporary offices at 190 N. Main St., Washington.

Foltz asked that Washington Rides have a “peer consultant” because she has heard “over and over again only someone (who) has walked in the shoes of a person needing help can truly understand the feeling of the rider.”

Gombita said this is “not something we’ve ever considered,” but that she can review it with the board.

Foltz also asked for additional trip schedulers and reservationists for quicker answering of calls with fewer errors,

Gombita said the board recently approved the hiring of a sixth customer service representative in anticipation of additional walk-in traffic when it moves to the East Chestnut Street building.

Foltz asked that “trip schedulers … really know the area and can more accurately adjust times,” claiming that Washington Rides has allotted just 10 minutes for a 24-mile trip from hospitals in Pittsburgh’s Oakland area to Canonsburg, or seven minutes from the Allegheny General Hospital outpatient center on Gallery Drive, McMurray, to Washington.

“I don’t know where she’s getting those figures,” Gombita said, noting that the Ecolane routing software counts miles as a global positioning satellite system would do and takes traffic conditions into account.

After the meeting, Foltz asked that a commissioner or a representative of the office spend a half-day riding the paratransit service just for the experience. Gombita said her staff performs spot checks, identifying themselves as they board paratransit vehicles, and at other times monitoring situations from a car or waiting anonymously in public places to observe waiting times and interaction between drivers and clients.

Commission Chairman Larry Maggi said of paratransit problems Foltz brought up, “We’re trying to address that with the new authority. We’re starting from scratch again and with the new organization, we can try to alleviate some of the issues.”

Gombita acknowledged that Ecolane experienced a period three or four weeks ago when its data center was down, and information on tablet computers simply disappeared. But she said that since Tri-County Patriots for Independent Living Transportation Committee sponsored a series of public meetings in the wake of publicity about Foltz’s transit problems that the on-time service record of contractor First Transit has improved and that Washington Rides has been receiving fewer complaints.