Resolution 2022-04

Regarding the use of ride share services with paratransit

WHEREAS, one of the most vexing deficiencies with paratransit today is that customers must plan their trips in advance; for example, if transportation is needed to get to a job interview, customers must arrange a ride to get to the interview on time and then guess when they will need a ride to get back home, and they must do this days in advance; and

WHEREAS, paratransit systems are usually so overloaded that customers are too often picked up too late or not at all, meaning that they might arrive too early or too late for their appointments or, even worse, unable to return home; and

WHEREAS, Access-a-Ride, the paratransit program operated by Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD), has established a program called Access-On-Demand with Uber; and

WHEREAS, through Access-on-Demand with Uber, Access-a-Ride customers book their trips using the Uber app (four trips per day up to a maximum of 60 trips per month), receive curb-to-curb service, pay a minimum of $2 per trip while RTD subsidizes each trip up to a maximum of $20, and, if needed, request wheelchair-accessible vehicles; and

WHEREAS, RTD’s Access-on-Demand with Uber service eliminates the need for Access-a-Ride customers to plan their trips days in advance and enables them to make more appointments on time, not to mention having greater control over how or when they will return home: Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado in convention assembled this 29th day of October, 2022, in the city of Greeley, Colorado, that this organization call upon all providers of paratransit services in Colorado to develop and implement service programs and agreements with rideshare providers which would eliminate the need for their customers to have to plan trips days in advance while providing them with effective, accessible, and reliable transportation.