Robert Coward knew it would take about 25 minutes for MetroAccess, Metro’s curb-to-curb van service for the disabled, to get him to his daughter’s 10 a.m. graduation ceremony last Tuesday. But the Northeast man wasn’t taking any chances and scheduled a 9 a.m. pick-up.
The MetroAccess driver picked him up on time, but he would miss his daughter’s ceremony while the driver dropped off another customer — finally arriving nearly 3 hours late.
“I could have gone from D.C. line to the North Carolina line in the same amount of time,” Coward said.
While MetroAccessservice has stabilized over the last three months — averaging nearly 96 percent on-time service — problems still remain. On Thursday, Metro officials unveiled a series of changes they say they hope will help eliminate the 2 percent of severely late or missed trips.
Under the changes approved Thursday, customers will now be allowed to cancel trips within two hours of a scheduled pickup and make reservations seven days ahead, instead of the current 14 days. The contractor, MV Transportation, will also work to bundle trips within a geographic zone to cut down delays. Metro officials will pay $50,000 for an outside consultant to review the service — which provides about 4,500 daily rides for the elderly or disabled — and recommend further improvements.
“We aren’t saying, we have never said and you won’t hear us say, we have completely fixed MetroAccess,” said Metro Interim General Manager Dan Tangherlini. “What we want is a focused and sustained focus on these issues and problems.”
Tangherlini also appointed Steve Yaffe, planning manager of Fairfax County’s paratransit service, as the agency’s new chief operating officer for community transportation services. Yaffe has been widely credited with making the Fairfax County’s paratransit service a national model for service, Tangherlini said.
