PARATRANSIT COURT VICTORY

On January 8, 2001, a United States District Court issued the first decision in the country under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 with regards to "next day paratransit service." The case is titled: Liberty Resources v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

The Court upheld the US Department of Transportation's regulation that a public transportation entity "shall schedule and provide paratransit service to any ADA paratransit eligible person at any requested time on a particular day in response to a request for service made the previous day." 49 CFR 37.131(b).

That means 100% of persons with disabilities are entitled to paratransit rides the next day, just as 100% of nondisabled persons receive fix route service when they want it. It means that a Court has recognized that violation of the federal regulation is discrimination of a civil right.

The Court stated that DOT expected public transportation agencies "to attempt to provide properly requested rides to all ADA-eligible riders, i.e., without exception. In fact, DOT explicitly rejected incorporating a 98 percent performance standard."

The Court rejected the transportation authority's defense, stating "the focus is not on the percentage of paratransit rides that is provided to the disabled, but rather, the number of rides that the transportation authority fails to provide to these patrons and the reasons for that failure." Further, "while the transportation authority provides rides for many ADA-eligible patrons in compliance with the law, it may not rely on its own inadequacies to justify its noncompliance with the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act for all ADA-eligible patrons."

Besides ruling on the ADA's transportation duty, the Court also held that the Independent Living Center, which was one of two plaintiffs, had been injured by spending time meeting with the transportation authority regarding paratransit service problems and participating in protests concerning scheduling problems, and some of its staff had been unable to secure rides for volunteers and unable to schedule rides to visit clients. Liberty Resources provided "an undisputed record that show a concrete and particularized injury, specifically, expending their own time and resources in a range of ways." This was important because there were no named individual plaintiffs, only organizational plaintiffs.

This decision and the requirement for next day service is a great organizing handle. Transportation authorities throughout the country have known they were supposed to comply with "next-day" ride requirement but have blatantly violated it.

Besides the terrific Court decision, the US Department of Justice filed an extremely helpful and persuasive amicus brief. You can find it at http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/septabr.htm.

This decision is on the Internet at http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/opinions/01D0021P.HTM.