Does Lexington have the worst paratransit service in the United States? | Opinion

Those vans and buses you see on Lexington’s streets bearing the name “Wheels” carry passengers whose physical or other disabling conditions preclude them from using regular transit bus service. Many of these riders are elderly. Known as paratransit, this service is mandated in those communities that operate fixed route public bus services. In Lexington that responsible party is Lextran. Paratransit allows such folk to work, shop, visit friends and relatives, and to make medical appointments.

Among the key indexes of a quality services is “on time performance” — the expectation that both pickups and drop offs will be within a 30-minute window. From my research most consider this to be no less than 90% to be satisfactory, while many systems strive to attain 100%.

This is not always the case. Recently Louisville’s paratransit service found itself in hot water when in 2019, 2020 & 2021, its OTP was 88%, 85% and 91%, respectfully. (These were among the problems that sent Louisville General Manager packing). If only Lexington had it as good.

During May 2024 (the most recently available data point), Wheels’ on time performance was 71.86% and for the 11 months of the fiscal year $71.71%. (To put this in perspective, a full-time worker who uses Wheels will be late for work over once a week.) A mere four years earlier when, Lextran still used the Red Cross to operate Wheels, the year-to-date on time performance for the same period was 94.24% Moreover, for the first 11 months of FY 2021 the cost of paratransit under the Red Cross was $3.7 million while in 2024 it was $6.5 million.

Lest you believe that these amounts have strained Lextran’s resources, in May 2021 Lextran had a cash balance of $18.2 million, and exactly four years later, $ 34.2 million.

Lextran’s current paratransit provider, RAPT DEV began in 2022. While the wind-down of the Red Cross naturally sent its OTP tumbling, RAPT DEV has had more than ample time, and money, to bring services to a level Lexington enjoyed four years ago. To date the Lextran Board has been unaccountably lax in holding RAPT DEV to task. In fact, the RAPT DEV contract was renewed by the Lextran Board in April.

While there is no information available on which US city definitely has the worst paratransit service, it is clear that Lexington swims among the bottom feeders. We deserve better.

Rick Christman is the CEO of Employment Solutions and a former and long-time member of the Board of the Lexington Transit Authority/Lextran.

This story was originally published July 30, 2024 at 3:27 PM.