BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Scheduling public transportation has proven to be difficult for people living with disabilities in Western New York.
I spoke with Stephanie Speaker, a Cheektowaga woman who has had a decades-long fight behind "Stephanie's Bill," to expand bus routes at the state level.
"I don't want to see people get stranded," Speaker said.
Speaker told me she went to an event on July 24, a senior picnic at Como Bowen Road Grove in Lancaster. She said paratransit could only schedule her between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. to be on time for the event, which started at 11 a.m. and ended at 3 p.m.
"They couldn't come back until 5 to 5:30 p.m.," she added.
Speaker spent six hours waiting. It's another reason she's working on getting Senate Bill 9703 passed in Albany. She's getting help from one local lawmaker.
"The NFTA is only obligated to provide as the crow flies, bus service from a bus stop, three-quarters of a mile," said Erie County Clerk Mickey Kearns. "What Stephanie and her team have been working with and advocating is to change that to three miles."
New York State Senate moves Senate Bill S5092, also known as the paratransit bill, out of the transportation committee and into the financial committee.
"If you don't live three-quarters of a mile from a bus stop, you can't get them," Speaker shared. "What if something were to happen between that time because I also have epilepsy and asthma that I have to watch out for? There was nobody there at the time I arrived."
"People with disabilities would have the same access as people in the community," Kearns added. "So people see 'big bus' as we call it, but along with that they should have people with disabilities, access to the community, to events, to go to school, for employment."
To better serve Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) riders, Erie County rolled out a Rate Your Ride WNY survey, in collaboration with Columbia Law School and the Western New York Law Center.
I reached out to the NFTA for comment and am waiting to hear back.
