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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Riders with disabilities get lift from STA

The Spokane Transit Authority Board gave new hope at its Wednesday meeting to more than 200 people with disabilities who are slated to lose their special van service in January.

A new rural feeder service would match up current users of STA door-to-door paratransit service with Rideshare van pools. Those vans would transport the paratransit users into the service area where paratransit vans would then pick them up.

Van pool fees of about 50 cents a mile will be paid for with $44,000 in state grant money through April or June 2005, depending on how long the money lasts.

Only the existing 211 users who are within the present paratransit area – places within 11/2 miles of fixed-route bus lines – but outside the ¾-mile boundary to be implemented in January are eligible for the new program.

Others could arrange for van pool service, but they would have to pay the per-mile charge, said Steve Blaska, STA operations director.

“We’ve essentially provided a way for the people outside the service area to use Rideshare to get within the ¾-mile boundary,” said board Chairwoman and Spokane County Commissioner Kate McCaslin, who called the compromise a “soft landing” for those affected.

The paratransit boundary change is being made to comply with the terms of a 1999 STA legal settlement regarding who would be eligible for paratransit service. At the time, STA agreed to serve people within 11/2 miles for five years before moving to the Americans with Disabilities Act standard of three-quarters of a mile.

Board members voted earlier this year to delay the change until 2005 in case a recently passed sales tax issue failed. In that case, STA would have had to reduce fixed-route service and subsequently paratransit service.

The tax passed overwhelmingly, but was never intended to keep paratransit service at the current boundaries, McCaslin said.

Several paratransit users who will be affected by the change spoke out at Wednesday’s board meeting against changing the paratransit boundary.

“Listening to the people in the audience who depend on this service, I would like the board to reconsider grandfathering in people currently getting the service,” said board member and Spokane City Councilman Joe Shogan.

Board members were warned by their legal counsel, Laura McAloon, that grandfathering in current users would create inequity and discriminate against other users, setting up the likelihood of another lawsuit and the expensive proposition that people within STA’s entire service area would be eligible for paratransit service.

A subsequent vote to reconsider the boundary change failed.