Two-Year Wait for Manhattan Access-A-Ride Assessment Center Ends

Commuters wanting paratransit options have a new place for evaluations — but many say the entire process is outdated anyway.

By Jose Martinez

This article originally appeared in The City.

NEW YORK - New Yorkers with disabilities who live in Manhattan no longer have to travel as far as the South Shore of Staten Island for Access-A-Ride eligibility screenings.

The MTA on Wednesday opened the first assessment center in the borough since January 2022, when a center on West 13th Street stopped performing evaluations for new and existing paratransit users.

Located at 3 Stone Street, around the corner from the transit agency’s Lower Manhattan headquarters, the new center offers screenings for people whose disabilities may restrict or prevent them from taking trains and buses.

"It is very welcome,” said Tina Hansen, 64, who last month trekked from her Lower East Side home to Tottenville on Staten Island for an in-person assessment. “I wish they had done it sooner, but here we are.”

The opening of the Manhattan center comes as Access-A-Ride is on pace to top pre-pandemic ridership totals by the end of the year. According to MTA numbers, there were 800,000 paratransit trips last month, a 30% increase from September 2023.

Agency data also shows that the paratransit performance metrics have improved markedly since 2021, when THE CITY reported that Access-A-Ride reliability sunk to its lowest level in years during the pandemic, as driver no-shows, customer complaints and call center wait times trended in the wrong directions.

“This is a system which has gotten so much better, that it is attracting new riders at a pace… that is outpacing its pre-COVID numbers,” Janno Lieber, the MTA chairperson and CEO, said Wednesday at the agency’s monthly board meeting

But the MTA continues to face criticism from disability-rights advocates over what some have called an “antiquated” and “ridiculous” in-person screening process. It includes walking along a corridor and boarding a mock bus, where riders are assessed on if or how they handle rails and steps and letting on fareboxes.

Less-obvious disabilities can be overlooked, advocates say, shutting some candidates out of the service. 

“The assessment centers are really about assessing a mobility disability,” said Sharon McLennon-Wier, who is blind and the executive director of Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York. “They don’t have anyone to diagnose the head or the eyes, so a lot of times, they deny.”

‘I Was Just So aggravated’

Samson Onilude, director of the eligibility determination unit for paratransit, said the Lower Manhattan center is expected to conduct 500 to 600 assessments each month.

“After the functional tests are concluded, then we have some standardized questions,” Onilude said. “Where the closest train station is to them, are they able to get there, do they currently work, do they currently climb steps to get into their house.”

Hansen, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, said her Sept. 19 trip to a Staten Island screening took more than an hour — and that was after being stuck in traffic at the Manhattan entrance to the Hugh L. Carey Battery Tunnel.

She said she had not been a regular paratransit rider for several years because of her annoyance at those who are not granted continual eligibility having to be recertified every five years 

According to the MTA, about half of its paratransit users have continual full eligibility, which does not require them to be recertified for the service.

A bus staircase test at the new assessment center. Oct. 30, 2024

“I was just so aggravated,” Hansen said. “And my disability is such that it’s not going to go away — ever.”

Access-A-Ride users who live in Manhattan can also be screened in The Bronx if it is closer to where they live or go to centers in Queens, Brooklyn and on Staten Island.

The MTA has used the universal in-person assessment process since March 2007, with candidates being evaluated on their functional abilities to use public transportation. First-time applicants Access-A-Ride can, as of earlier this year, start the process with an online inquiry before being scheduled for a screening.

“Opening the [Manhattan] assessment center represents that the MTA is investing in paratransit and continuing to improve the service for our customers from intake and application all the way out to how we handle issues on the day of service,” said Rachel Cohen, acting vice president for paratransit at the MTA.

In-person requirements have come under criticism from disability-rights advocates who point to some transit agencies in other cities that rely on remote evaluations or accept documents from a licensed physician that demonstrate the need for paratransit services, Cohen countered that the MTA is committed to in-person screenings, arguing they are “the best way” to understand a rider’s functional ability to use the transit system.

“We think it’s, frankly, an important tool to manage the [paratransit] program and make sure we provide the service for those who do need it,” she said.

Henry Ludmer, an 83-year-old Greenwich Village resident who underwent a hip replacement in 2017, told THE CITY last spring that he opted out of Access-A-Ride altogether rather than take a trip to Staten Island for a recertification screening.

Ludmer said this week that he would welcome having the option of paratransit service “as a backup,” but said he’s walking more and “happy to be a pedestrian.”

“Now I’m really into it,” he said.

Hansen, meanwhile, said she returned to Access-A-Ride this week after a pair of rides on MTA buses made her uncomfortable.

“I’m a vulnerable person,” she said. “I don’t need to be in those types of situations.”

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