5—Expanded rideshare, paratransit, and community-based services

Metro offers a range of transportation choices, including its commuter-van programs, which are seeing record growth. Every Metro bus is wheelchair-accessible, and Metro also offers curb-to-curb Access van service for qualifying persons with disabilities. Every Metro bus has a bicycle rack to support cycling as a healthy, earth-friendly choice for getting around.

Transit Now includes funding to improve these services, and also to improve access to its regular bus services for seniors and riders with disabilities. These improvements include:

• Making enhancements that double participation in the VanPool, VanShare, and ridematch programs
• For users with disabilities in areas that are not served by the Access paratransit program, providing service through the Community Access Transportation Program
• Within Metro’s regular fixed-route coverage areas, improving access to transit by walking and bicycling.

What’s happened so far

In 2007, Metro expanded its Access van program to provide service from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays in four rural areas in the eastern and southeastern parts of the county that were not previously served (see map). Metro also began planning enhancements to bus stops that are heavily used by seniors and/or persons with disabilities to make it easier for those customers to ride Metro’s regular buses. Improvements include benches, curb cuts, or shelters, depending on the users’ needs at each stop. As of mid-2008, 21 stop enhancements were in progress or had been completed.

Metro also used Transit Now funds to hire a full-time Access program employee whose primary focus is service quality, and to purchase five new vans for use by social service agencies that serve seniors and people with disabilities under Metro’s Community Access Transportation program.

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What happens next

Metro is creating an online orientation course that will make it easier for new vanpools and vanshares to get going. The course is scheduled to launch by the end of 2008. Metro’s Rideshare Operations is also considering whether to accelerate Transit Now-funded vehicle purchases to meet the unexpected demand for vanpools.

To help bicycle riders get around the region, Metro has equipped its fleet of buses with racks that accommodate two bikes. Metro’s goal is to retrofit its entire bus fleet with three-bicycle racks in 2008-09, after some design problems that emerged last year with the threebike racks are resolved. Bicycle racks are also available on request for all Metro vanpool and vanshare vehicles.