ASI riders criticize agency, drivers (Part 3)

Issues about safety and timely pickups from ASI continue to be a recurrent concern for several students. CSUN student Gerardo Garay said timetables are often missed when he books transportation. Garay said he recently suffered a three-hour pickup delay.

“For me, timing is a big issue. (Drivers and dispatchers) need to get their timing right. If we have a 20-minute wait period after they are supposed to arrive, they need to get their timing straight,” Garay, a kinesiology major, said. “Most drivers are nice, and many drive slow, but the issue is that I depend on Access transportation. The routes are poorly designed, and I can’t drive. It’s a big issue for me.”

Access Service drivers undergo training workshops that run between three and four weeks, before they are authorized to work. The drivers’ salaries during training are $8 an hour. Once they start regular work, their salaries are increased to $9.50 an hour. Their salaries reach $10.50 an hour, only if the operators are able to drive “bubble vans,” or large vans whose ceiling are raised to form a bubble shape.

All drivers need to pass a criminal and DMV background check before and during training time to determine their work eligibility. Diego Soriano Lopez, the driver at fault in Ernesto’s case, was arrested in 1995 on one misdemeanor count of unlawful entry on a closed property in the Wilshire District. He paid a $1,000 bail and was released from jail. Lopez’ case was later dismissed for insufficient evidence.

Donna Pomerantz, a member of the Los Angeles County Commission on Disabilities, told me many of the approximately 70,000 disabled Access riders often experience mistreatment from the drivers, who engage in verbal fights related to drop-off and pick-up sites, pick-up timetables, ridesharing and improper wheelchair belt fastening.

There are drivers do not wait a reasonable time for the disabled to exit their apartments or houses to arrive at the pick-up site, said Pomerantz, and log these situations as ‘no show offs,’ which in turn tarnishes the customers’ booking records. Riders are allowed to record three, and sometimes four ‘no shows’ in 60 consecutive days to keep ridership benefits.

“Some riders are afraid they may not be picked up by the drivers at all. In many occasions, the drivers are overburdened with work, and that creates tension among them and the riders. That is not fair,” said Pomerantz, who is legally blind and also uses Access transportation. “Some Access riders have told me they are afraid of dying if conditions don’t improve.”

ASI executive director Shelly Lyons Verrinder said many of the current problems ASI faces began to grow about 15 months ago, when the agency adopted ridesharing as an option to ensure more customer transportation with less dispatching. She acknowledged pick-up waiting times are now longer. She said the agency has not increase its current fleet of minivans.

“ASI spends about $1 million a year in complaints. We refer those complaints to OMC (Operations Monitoring Center). This center monitors late pickups and issues minivans to get late pickups within 45 minutes of the original bookings,” Lyons Verrinder said.

Lyons Verrinder said about 55% of all ASI rides are handled as ride-shares, which has prompted the agency to save money in units operations.

The January 2008 audit on ASI found that 41% of the surveyed ASI customers said overall service of Access Paratransit was the same in relation to last year’s, 46% said it was improving, and 13% answered it was getting worse.

The same audit reported that some ASI contracts with other paratransit providers don’t require annual evaluations of conduct on Access Paratransit drivers. In 2007, there were 893 drivers working for contractors under ASI.

The audit stated two of the three contractors they chose to review did not conduct performance evaluations on their drivers. The audit does not reveal whether the San Gabriel Transportation agency was monitored in this review.