What are the three categories of eligibility for ADA complementary paratransit?
Category 1 - People who can't navigate travel on the bus or train, even if it's accessible, because of a disability.
This category includes people who are unable, due to a mental or physical impairment (including a vision impairment), to board, ride, or disembark from an accessible bus or train without assistance. For example:
- People with cognitive disabilities, if they do not know where to get off the bus or how to go to their destination from the bus stop.
- People who are blind or who have low vision, if they don't have the travel skills needed to navigate the route to their destination.
- A person with a visual impairment that allows him/her to see well enough to travel independently during the daytime but not at night.
Category 2 - People who need an accessible bus or train.
This category includes people who use wheelchairs and other people with disabilities who can use an accessible vehicle but who want to travel on a route that is still inaccessible (not served by accessible buses or accessible trains and key rail stations).
Category 3 - People who have a specific disability-related condition.
This category includes people who have a specific disability-related condition that prevents them from traveling to a boarding location or from a disembarking location. Environmental barriers (distance, terrain, weather) or architectural barriers not under control of the transit agency (such as lack of curb ramps) that prevent an individual from traveling to or from the boarding or disembarking locations may form the basis for eligibility. For example:
- A person who uses a wheelchair may be able to negotiate a trip to the bus stop up a moderately sloped hill on a summer day, but not in the winter after a heavy snowfall.
- A person may be eligible if architectural barriers present safety hazards on the only route to the train station or bus stop.
- A person who walks with a cane and would need to travel 3/4 mile to the bus route, but she cannot walk that great a distance.
- People with disabilities that affect them very differently over time, such as multiple sclerosis. During some periods, they are able to go to the bus stop or train station. During other periods, they are not able to do so.
All three categories include people who may be able to ride fixed-route transit for some, but not all of their trips.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires transit agencies to provide paratransit services to people with disabilities who cannot use the fixed route bus or rail service. In general, paratransit service must be provided within 3/4 of a mile of a bus route or rail station, at the same hours and days, for no more than twice the regular fixed route fare. The ADA further requires that paratransit rides be provided to all eligible riders if requested any time the previous day, within an hour of the requested time.
