Para Transpo to welcome more riders aboard, transit commission decides

Ottawa's transit commission has voted to broadenParaTranspo service to include a wider group of customers, estimatingbetween800 and 2,000 people with intellectual disabilities or mental health issues couldsign up for door-to-door rides.

The recommendations come after a year-long review of who should be eligible to take Para Transpo minibuses and accessible taxis, and how they should book their trips.

• Para Transpo gearing up to widen eligibility for riders
• Ottawa Morning: What will it take forpeople with disabilities to take regular transit?
• Para Transpo should also serve those with developmental disabilities: survey

OCTranspomanagement couldn't pinpoint how many new riders might apply to useParaTranspo, butgeneral manager JohnManconisaid his department is not budgeting for any extra customersat this point.

"We'll see what the uptake is and work our way through it," Manconi said.

25,000 no-shows per year

Manconiassured transit commissioners at a meeting Monday thatOC Transpodoes havea strategy to pay for all the changes stemming from the review, includinghiring a medical professional to review applications.

He pointed toa new, "aggressive" contract with Coventry Connections for itsaccessibletaxi servicethat he said freed up money to accommodate more ParaTranspo riders.

Para Transpo also has animproved dispatch system, and has converted its fleet toa new modelof minibus that can carry more passengers,said Manconi.

Improvements to thebooking processand an updated penalty system also aim to addressa large number of late cancellations and no-shows.

Some25,000 Para Transpo tripseach year are no-shows, said assistant general manager Pat Scrimgeour.Another 100,000 trips are cancelled late, Scrimgeour said. The city acknowledges many of the cancellations and no-shows are unavoidable.

"It's not about that. It's about doing what's right for the customers," said Manconi."Is there some abuse? Yes, and we will deal with it an appropriate and caring manner."

Consulting from the bottom, up

As part of the review, OCTranspoheld more than a dozenin-person consultationsessions and distributeda questionnaire, whilea working groupof transit commissioners looked at the many issues.

"This is a bottom-up approach that was used here," saidCoun. MarianneWilkinson, who hoped other city departments might use a similar model of consultation. "It takes some time. It takes some effort. But in the end you get a better product."

Only four people showed up to speak aboutthe recommendationson Monday.

"I think that, often, the closer we come to getting it right in a staff report, the less people that are out there wanting to make public delegations," noted citizen transit commissioner Blair Crew.

If the Para Transpo recommendations receive full council approval, they should be implemented by the spring of 2017.