A blind man waited hours for his ride. Can Raleigh fix its paratransit system?

Clearthur Davis was scheduled for an MRI at 7 a.m.

He called GoRaleigh Access, a city transit service for people with disabilities, to get picked up. Minutes before he left his home, the driver said they needed to pick someone else up before his appointment.

He arrived late for his medical procedure and was told he’d be picked back up in 15 minutes. The appointment wasn’t over, he said, and the van sent to pick him up left, leaving him stranded.

“It just so happened that one of the cabs I ride (with) said ‘I know I’m not going to get paid but you are not going to stay there any longer; I am coming to get you,’” Davis said. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Davis was one of several blind and low-vision residents who spoke to the Raleigh City Council this week about their problems using GoRaleigh Access after the city changed how it manages calls Aug. 1.

Now, Raleigh leaders are apologizing and promising to do better.

“Our intent here was to provide an upgrade to a system, and we just missed the mark,” said Michael Moore, assistant city manager and transportation director.

“And we’re going to get this fixed.,” he said. “We’re going to get it right. And I know that everybody on our team is working hard to get that done. And I just can’t say I’m sorry enough because I know how much of a lifeline this is for folks.”

New software

GoRaleigh Access provides “curb to curb” service for people with disabilities who can’t use GoRaleigh’s fixed-route bus system.

The paratransit system, mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act., averages 1,200 trips a day. It’s normally $2 per trip, but fares have been free since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The previous software was no longer being updated and faced limited support after it was sold twice in the last 18 months, said David Walker, the city’s transportation manager who spoke to the City Council Tuesday.

The new software is meant to provide real-time trip information to riders and city staff and allow for growth as the city adds transit lines, he said.

One of the new features lets people using the system’s app “see your vehicle approaching,” Walker said.

“What if you can’t see?” asked one woman in the audience, prompting laughter from the crowd of blind and low-vision residents.

“Point taken,” Walker said.

While things have been improving since the first week, he said the city will work tirelessly to get things back to where they were.

“I really want to apologize to everybody who has been impacted by this change in service,” Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said at the meeting. “It sounds like your lives have been made very difficult by this. And it’s heartbreaking to listen to these stories. We will do better, and we can do better. But we must do better.”

City Manager Marchell Adams-David echoed the mayor’s comments.

“The comments that we heard today are quite frankly, unacceptable,” she said.

Missed appointments

Some people described being disconnected from the phone line to schedule a trip. Others said they’ve waited hours for a ride. Some said they are now assigned cab drivers at random and want to be driven by drivers they’ve come to know,

One man, William Massey, described calling dispatch four times while waiting for his ride at Pullen Park.

“They had the wrong address,” he said. “My concern about that is not the discomfort of being in a parking lot in the sun for three hours and 12 minutes. But not all blind, 80-year-olds are in as good health and shape as I am. That could have been a serious issue.”

On the ride to city hall on Tuesday, Massey was told he’d be picked up early because two other people needed rides.

“We rode around for two hours, never finding the address of either of the other people,” he said. “Finally the dispatcher told (the driver) to bring me to the meeting.”

Geoffrey Menko has used the paratransit system for over 15 years and said people become familiar with those who drive them.

“They know us,” he said. “They know what we look like.”

Denied service

Joseph Gibbs was one of two people with service dogs at the meeting. He’s used the paratransit system since 2000 and said it’s never been as frustrating as it has been in the last two weeks.

“I’ve had been denied access because of my service dog,” he said. “My wife has also been denied access because of (the) service dog. And a lot of us do have close relationships with our drivers. And it is a pain having to get in on somebody else’s car and you don’t know who they are, or how they’re gonna react.

It’s a violation of the ADA to deny someone service because of their service animal.

“You got to wait too long to be picked up, If you get picked up at all,” he said. “I had to worry about getting back and forth to work because my trips, both ways, were canceled for the entire month.”

Some people came to speak to the City Council about a different topic but switched gears after hearing from those facing challenges with the GoRaleigh Access system.

“I came here to talk about proactive policing,” said Dawn Blagrove, executive director of Emancipate NC. “And I have the perfect solution: Instead of having 15 Raleigh police officers show up to harass people in southeast Raleigh, why don’t you send them to pick up some of these blind folks that are waiting for four hours at a time?”