Harold Snider helped shepherd the Americans With Disabilities Act into law. But when the disability access consultant who has been blind since birth uses the region’s transit service created in response to that law, he often ends up with what he calls a “trip from hell.”
Metro says its trips on MetroAccess should be comparable to its service on Metrobus because both services contend with traffic on area roads. Here’s how long Harold Snider’s trip would take on different modes:» Google Maps: The 15.4 miles should take 36 minutes driving.» Metro’s trip planner for bus and rail: Red Line train transfer to bus should take 48 minutes to 75 minutes, depending on connections.» Metro’s trip planner for bus: Three bus trips with transfers that should take 2:06 hours to 2:30, depending on connections.» MetroAccess June 2 trips:
Direct trip: 1:04
Return trip with three additional pickups/drop-offs: 1:50
The Examiner accompanied him last week on MetroAccess for a round trip from his Rockville home for a midday meeting in downtown Washington.
Snider reserved the trip in advance, but when he called the service that morning to make sure he got to his meeting on time, the computerized program said he would arrive at 12:06 p.m., six minutes after the meeting began. He said he called to get the time changed. His estimated arrival was changed to 12:03 p.m., still too late.
After another call, the trip was changed. But when he called back to verify the times, the computer said it had no trips scheduled. “They canceled all my trips,” he said.
When he called again, the computerized system listed the trips and had him arriving in time.
The trip there was uneventful: a vehicle looking like a taxi took 64 minutes, making no other stops, and got him to the meeting with enough time to get a seat.
But Snider called the return trip a “trip from hell.” The air conditioner on the van was broken on the sunny, humid day. The van made three stops to pick up and drop off other riders.
The return trip took 1 hour and 50 minutes.
Metro officials say the driver should have requested a replacement van with working air conditioning. “We absolutely agree and understand that our customers need to have working air conditioning on hot days,” said access services manager Christian Kent.
But Metro says the timing of the trip was better than required. MetroAccess is required to match the time of a comparable bus trip. For Snider, taking Metrobus would have involved two transfers and three buses, running the same amount of time or longer. A combination of bus and rail would have been faster.
“It’s difficult to compete with rail because we can’t go underground,” Kent said. “We feel bus is more fair to compare.”
Elaine Gardner, director of the disability rights project at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, said some people with disabilities are fragile and cannot tolerate a long trip because they rely on oxygen tanks that will run out or have other health problems.
After his trip, Snider cooled off in his home’s air conditioning. Then he filed a complaint.
