An MTA program that allows some Access-A-Ride users to arrange trips through app-hailed car rides is set to get more expensive.
Disabled New Yorkers who currently pay $2.75 to get around via subsidized rideshare will be expected to pay $5 per trip, under an MTA proposal to make more people eligible for the program.
“We’re expanding e-hail,” NYC Transit president Rich Davey said Monday at a meeting of the MTA’s board.
Currently 1,200 of Access-a-Ride’s 175,000 customers are part of the agency’s rideshare pilot program.
“Only 1% of or customers currently qualify for e-hail,” Davey continued. “What we’re doing is tripling that amount to 3,600, but as mentioned, asking our customers to increase their co-pay and to think about how they use their trips.”
The plan would also consider a cap on the number of rides an eligible New Yorker could take with the program.
Davey said the proposal is “within line with our other peer transit systems across the United States,” adding that app-hailed service is “not required” to be part of Access-a-Ride.
The plan is not the first time that the MTA has proposed increasing the cost of the pilot program.
The last time such a move was proposed, in 2019, the agency said it would double eligibility while capping subsidies to $15 per ride and limiting New Yorkers to 16 trips per month.
The on-demand rideshare program is meant to supplement traditional Access-A-Ride, in which riders are expected to book a seat on the system’s blue-and-white vans a day in advance.
“You might as well tell us, ‘don’t ride,’” Access-A-Ride user Dustin Jones told the MTA board Monday.
He was among some two dozen riders and disability advocates who spoke in opposition to the plan.
“As someone who advocates for people with disabilities, I honestly cannot understand what is it about the disabled community where a same-day trip has to be so complicated?” asked Tashia Lerebours.
“Something I would really love is for each of you to…
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