RTD directors demanded Tuesday night that agency General Manager Cal Marsella come up with a plan quickly for fixing a faulty access-a-Ride paratransit system that has left disabled riders stranded in recent weeks.
About six weeks ago, the Regional Transportation District adopted a new software called RouteMatch that was aimed making the system more efficient and productive, thereby reducing costs.
But at RTD’s monthly board meeting, some users of the system said late pickups and inefficient and unnecessary rides across town were making them late for work and in danger of losing their jobs.
Priscilla Jones, of Aurora, said she normally is picked up at home by an access-a-Ride van at 4:30 a.m. for a daily trip to her job at the Federal Center in Lakewood.
Since RouteMatch was put in place, delayed home pickups have made her late for work, and on one occasion she had a 4:30 p.m. pickup scheduled to take her home from work and the van did not show until 7 p.m., said Jones, who has retinitis pigmentosa and is visually impaired.
“I don’t want to sit at work for 13 hours. I want to go home,” she told board members. “I’ve been late three times a week. I want to maintain gainful employment.”
Robert Weinberg, who is blind, and uses the paratransit service to get to his job in Aurora, echoed Jones’ concerns.
“Access-a-Ride is my lifeline to work,” Weinberg said, noting that with RouteMatch in place, “rides don’t show or they’re late.”
“It is a disaster,” he said. “It reminds me of the DIA baggage system.”
Access-a-Ride is operated for RTD by private contractors with 330 vehicles and 450 drivers who provide between 2,600 and 3,000 transit trips a day to eligible riders. Many users of the service have no alternative transportation for getting to work or to hospitals and doctors’ offices.
Tom Coogan, RouteMatch’s vice president of business development, said his company was adding new software that should work out some of the remaining kinks in access-a-Ride and make it run more smoothly.
Impatient RTD directors said they’ve heard before about alleged improvements to the system, but time has run out.
“You guys are yo-yo-ing us up and down with B.S.,” director Neill Quinlan told Coogan. “You have to do something or either fess up and get out.”
“This situation is our lowest moment and involves people who need transit the most,” said director Bill Christopher.
Marsella acknowledged that with RouteMatch, access-a-Ride trips are inefficiently “zig-zagging” around metro Denver, costing RTD in extra fuel and time.
“We are looking at the possibility of turning (RouteMatch) off and going back to the original program,” Marsella told board members. “I can’t make excuses. The problems are numerous.”
RTD signed a $1.1 million contract with RouteMatch for the planned access-a-Ride upgrade. The agency has paid the company $844,625 so far and still owes about $301,000. That amount is being withheld until the system works, Marsella said.
“This board is fed up,” director Wally Pulliam told Coogan Tuesday night. You say, ‘Gee, we’ve got technical problems.’ You’re technical people.”
“You’ve got until Friday,” Pulliam added.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
