There are hundreds of thousands of people in New York City who cannot use the subway or city buses. Riders with disabilities have a “paratransit” system instead where we are forced to book travel 24 hours in advance via a shared ride service called Access a Ride. Rides on traditional paratransit are shared and endlessly stressful as they can take hours longer thanks to circuitous routes and endless wait times. This is why many of us have difficulty committing to meaningful or consistent work. How can you take a job if you have no idea whether you’ll make it to work each day, let alone on time? What do we do if Access a Ride is your only affordable option? The MTA's answer to this for the last five or so years was a 1200-person pilot program that promised unlimited same-day ride bookings, shorter wait times, and equally affordable fares. 

Three years ago, nearly 6,500 of you fought to preserve this program. Because of your hard work and the work of many others, the MTA left the life-changing pilot program intact, amidst all the loss and economic difficulty of the COVID-19 pandemic. But now, they are once again aiming to cut disabled people’s ability to travel freely.

While they have proposed to expand the program’s participant pool from 1,200 to 3,600 New Yorkers, they are in turn cutting the benefits from unlimited same-day rides to as few as 25 rides a month coming out to 12.5 round trips, or just 3.125 round trips a week. A ride cap this severe forces all of us to again rely on the very antiquated access-a-ride system, putting us in the position of having to book travel 24-48 hours in advance, deal with higher cancelation and no-show frequencies and massively longer wait times. These are obstacles that non-disabled New Yorkers never have to deal with, and that no one in the busiest city in the world should be limited by. 

We are rekindling this petition to raise awareness that this life-changing program is once again under attack! Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz said previously,
“In a city where our mass transit system is too often inaccessible to people with disabilities, it is essential that we ensure our paratransit service is enabling all New Yorkers to move around our city with ease and efficiency... Unfortunately, the plan to expand the excellent on-demand pilot program leaves many users behind. Fare caps and ride limits make it nearly impossible for people to use Access-A-Ride to get where they need to go and that needs to change as soon as possible.”

Lend your voice by signing the petition—help save the program and keep it unrestricted, so that all people with disabilities can thrive, engage, and contribute in 2023 and far beyond! Tell city officials that if you do not require everyone to travel with 24-48 hour notice, you cannot require it of people with disabilities. Call on more officials or potential sponsors to prioritize the autonomy of people with disabilities and fund the same-day E-hail program so it is available to all disabled New Yorkers. Suppression of demand is illegal and suppression of an often isolated population like ours, inhumane. We are at a pivotal point in history where we will define how people with disabilities will be treated for generations. We will either slide backward or catapult forward and inspire all to join us. Use hashtags #AccessARights #EquitableTransportation4All