Making the Case for Reform of MetroAccess

For the past 27 years, disabled people of the DC metro area who use our local Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA)and the MetroAccess paratransit system have been plagued with gross ineptitude, disastrous paratransit policies, and discriminatory practices. As taxpayers, citizens, and riders we are entitled to much better treatment.

The WMATA MetroAccess system is dysfunctional and we the disabled riders, want change.

One of the excuses that I have heard from WMATA staff is that they need time to get things right. For example, the WMATA website has accessibility and usability problems. They say it takes time to get accessibility right, never mind the standards have been around for decades. Also, MetroAccess riders do not have GPS tracking for their bus, but Metrobus and Metrorail riders do. For years we have been hearing that it will take years for disabled MetroAccess riders to get their bus tracking app.

To put things in a sharper perspective, six decades ago, with just a slide rule, it took NASA, another transportation company of sorts, 12 years to figure out how to safely transport a man from Cape Canaveral, FL to the moon and bring him back to earth on a rocket. In 2022, with all the modern marvels of artificial intelligence and the microchip, WMATA is still figuring out how to take me from Silver Spring, MD to Arlington, VA on their vans without strangling me with their seatbelt or giving me back pains, and they have been at this for more than a quarter of a century. Is it really that hard?

Many in the Metro disabled community feel frustrated, disempowered, and defeated by WMATA. All disabled commuters want to do is to be safely transported around the DC Metro area to conduct our personal affairs and treated with the same dignity, respect, and equality of all commuters. However, the daily grind of WMATA’s failures   can sometimes make it feel like we are being punished for using WMATA MetroAccess paratransit.

Over the years most paratransit riders have simply endured the punishment and suffered in silence. Yes, we have complained to Mr. Paul Wiedefeld, Metro General Manager, and others at WMATA.

All too Often the most that we will get out of that is indifference and silence. On a good day, we may get pretensive actions to bring temporary relief, but the bigger systematic problem will continue to fester. Comprehensive reform is needed.

It is time for us in the disabled community to turn a new page. It is incumbent of us to stand fast, chart a new course, and bring about practical, robust, and transformative solutions of WMATA disability transportation that redound to our benefit.

Meet the Blogger

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ancil Torres from Silver Spring Maryland. I am the President of the W. R. Torres foundation for the Blind. I am also a WMATA MetroAccess paratransit customer. As a blind civic minded resident of my community, I believe that it is my responsibility, and the responsibility of other disabled people like me to step forward and take charge of

forging our collective transit service destiny. If we do nothing WMATA will keep on failing us year after year.

No one is going to come and rescue us from the ineptitude and harmful policies of WMATA and their disabled “advocates” enablers on the Accessibility Advisory Committee (AAC).

We have to fix this ourselves. A major part of beginning to fix the problem is access to information and community organization. An informed, involved, alert, and watchful community cannot be defeated.

Launching the MAW: We have Take off  

In keeping with the Torres Foundation’s mission to promote the development of people who are blind in order to achieve a better quality of life, on this day January,24 2022, I, Ancil Torres, President of the W. R. Torres Foundation for the Blind here by launch the Metro Access Watch (MAW) Blog. The primary purpose of the Blog is to harness the power of the web to inform and rally the disabled community to take action that will finally bring justice, equality, and respect for disabled riders of WMATA MetroAccess in the Washington DC area. The Blog will provide riders with a source for information on WMATA paratransit as well as a public forum to express and publicly document their WMATA concerns to each other, WMATA, our representatives, and anyone else who cares to listen. The days for suffering in silence are over.

How will it Work?

For starters, I will be posting every Monday. Initially the articles will all be written by me, but the intent is to have guest bloggers as well. The post will eventually be linked to Facebook and Twitter.

The Blog will include an informal survey that will seek to capture the views of the disabled regarding paratransit service in the Metro area. I would like to get at least thirty current riders to respond to the survey and the results will be posted here.

There will be other happenings so come back and visit. Let’s do it!