Transit Officials Say ‘Access’ Must Be Cut; Proposals Upset Users

SANTA ANA —  If you are elderly or disabled and need a ride, a van will pick you up at your door and deliver you anywhere in Orange County--for $1.70.

The hugely successful public service, run by the Orange County Transportation Authority, transports an average of 1,050 people a day. Most trips cost an average of $23.91 per passenger.

And therein lies the problem, say critics. They say the service, called Access, is way too expensive.

Transit officials may rein in the service to reduce costs with such steps as picking customers up at their curbs rather than their doors and trimming hours of operation.

That prospect worries some riders who fear the proposed cuts could cost them their independence.

Nearly 70 people attended a meeting Saturday in Fullerton--many elderly, some in wheelchairs--and about two dozen raised questions about the changes. Some wondered aloud how frail or disabled residents can travel safely from their homes to the curb and then wait there for vans to arrive, especially in rain or chilly weather.

“They may be on a cane. They may be on a walker,” said Jan H. “Micky” Scholte, who chairs a transportation group for the Area Agency on Aging Senior Citizens Advisory Council.

“They may be living alone, and their only means to get to the outside world is to have the driver come to their door,” Scholte said.

But William G. Steiner, chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority board, recently called Access a “Cadillac” operation. And Cheryl Johns, who manages the program, said it has become an extravagance that consumes 19% of the agency’s operating budget while serving only 2% of its customers.

“We’re spending a lot of money to move very few people,” said Johns, who has proposed a major overhaul of the service.

“If this is a Cadillac program,” Johns said, “maybe a Ford Fiesta would get us there just as well.”

“The consequences could be dire,” countered Carol Erickson, recreation director of the Buena Park Senior Center, to which 34 senior citizens ride Access vans each day.

Many of them, she said, are too frail to wait on the curb and too hard-of-hearing to hear a van’s horn from inside their houses. And for some passengers in wheelchairs, she said, being met at the door and escorted to the van is an absolute necessity.

“They need to keep in mind the abilities of the people they’re serving,” Erickson said of the OCTA. “This could have a big effect.”

Both sides of the debate will be aired at public hearing on Nov. 25. The OCTA is expected to decide the fate of the service in December.

Ironically, Johns said, the transportation agency has fallen victim to its own progressiveness and early good intentions.

“We are way above the minimum requirements,” she said, “but the bill is coming due.”

Those requirements are contained in the Americans With Disabilities Act, federal legislation enacted in 1990 requiring public transportation agencies to provide services for disabled people “comparable” to those offered to riders of the public bus system. Agencies were given until January 1997 to comply.

The OCTA, according to Johns, went one better: By 1995, it had established a fleet of 232 vans, each capable of transporting 11 to 18 passengers and two to five more in wheelchairs. Operating every day from 4:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., the vans pick passengers up at their doors and take them anywhere in the county for a fraction of the price of a taxi.

Trips in which a van is at least half full, Johns said, cost the agency about $5.90 per passenger. And the majority of trips, she said, involve no more than two passengers at a cost of $23.91 apiece.

“We always knew we would arrive at a point where we could no longer afford an enhanced program,” she said, “and now we’re at that point.”

The proposal also would:

* Reduce the longer and costlier rides by creating a system of zones, to be developed with input from customers;

* Limit pickups and drop-offs to areas within three-quarters of a mile on either side of existing bus routes, a change that Johns said would affect only 2% of people now using the service;

* Limit hours of operation to conform with the hours of existing bus lines nearby;

* Change the advance reservation system to decrease the number of no-shows.

But Erickson said those changes would be “pretty significant for us,” especially the loss of door-to-door service.

At her senior center on a recent weekday, those concerns were echoed at the long tables on which the daily hot meal is served.

“The van is the only way we can get here,” said Mary Martinez, 77, who can no longer drive but spends four days a week at the center with her 82-year-old husband, Jess. “I’m not going to go around asking my neighbors for a ride,” she said. “If it weren’t for the van, we couldn’t come.”

Dale Goodman, 54, of Placentia, who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, criticized the proposals at Saturday’s meeting, saying her mobility would be sharply curtailed.

She singled out the notion of limiting service times to existing local bus schedules, reporting that her local bus runs only from 6 to 8:30 a.m. and from 3 to 5:30 p.m.

“My choice is, what? To stay at home?” she asked.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Deborah Schoch.