VOICEOVER: And now, please welcome David Fenley, MCD, ADA Director, moderating a conversation about on-demand accessible transportation.
DAVID FENLEY: Good morning, everybody. David Fenley here. Like said, I am the ADA director at the Minnesota Council on Disability. I’ve been here for about 10 years now. We have three panelists. I’ll let them introduce themselves. I am a white male with brown and gray hair. I have a dark blue button down shirt on. And we are having a conversation on accessible, on-demand transportation.
Before I kick it to our panelists to introduce themselves and talk a little bit about this, I think it’s good to define what on-demand accessible transportation is. I think a lot of folks take for granted their ability to have a car show up, or to hop in their car, or to hop on a bus whenever they want to go wherever they want. That would be considered on-demand. Accessible being, you can use a wheelchair with it. We don’t have a lot of options for on-demand accessible transportation in Minnesota, and that does include the cities too. So with that said, I’ll pass it just to my left here. Let’s start with the representative.
STEVE ELKINS: Hello. My name is Steve Elkins. I’m a state representative. I represent the western half of Bloomington. And I have– about 5′ 9″, white male with salt and pepper light brown hair wearing a brown Herringbone blazer, blue shirt, and Paisley tie. And yeah, I’ve been– yeah, go ahead and just do the introductions first. Yeah.
SCOTT DIBBLE: Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for the honor of inviting me and being a part of this conversation. My name is Scott Dibble. I’m a State Senator. I represent most of Southwest Minneapolis, about half of downtown, a little sliver of North Minneapolis. I chair the Transportation Committee. I use he/him pronouns. I’m a white man, and I have blonde hair trending towards gray, a beard that’s pretty much all gray. I’m wearing a matching gray jacket, and a gray tie that has flowers on it, and a beautiful print shirt. And very happy to be here. Thank you.
SUMUKHA TERAKANAMBI: Hi, everyone. My name is Sumukha Terakanambi. I’m a he– sorry. I think it’s– is it working? OK. Sorry about that. Hi, everyone. My name is Sumukha Terakanambi. I am a public policy consultant here at MCD, and I also work for the Rare Disease Advisory Council. And I’m here today as a self-advocate to share my experiences with barriers to transportation. I’m an Asian-Indian male with glasses, a black beard, black mustache. I’m wearing a blue sweater and black pants. And very happy to be here today.
DAVID FENLEY: Thank you all very much. This is David again. Let’s start with Sumukha. I just want to ask you a basic question. So what does accessible on-demand transportation mean for you in particular?
SUMUKHA TERAKANAMBI: So for me, I would say that the way I define on-demand is basically, I should have the ability to use one of the TNC apps to book a ride. And within a couple of minutes, a ride shows up. And it’s fully wheelchair accessible, so I can be tied down to the vehicle and safely get transported to where I need to go.
Basically, the way the system is set up right now is that I have to plan my day way ahead of time around the availability of transportation. If you use nonmedical emergency transportation or metro mobility, that is something you have to book way ahead of time, sometimes two days in advance. And so that’s obviously not on-demand. And so whenever there’s something that comes up that you need to be at or a spontaneous event in the community, whatever it is, really, you don’t have the option of finding that– you don’t have the option of finding that transportation. It’s not available.
And I can also provide just another example of why this is such an important issue. This recently happened. About two years ago, I was actually stranded at my local Sports Clips because– so when I went to get a haircut, which is something that everyone does, something very normal. I went there, and my accessible van ended up breaking down, actually. So what happened is, the ramp was jammed and it wouldn’t release, and so there was no way for me to enter the vehicle.
Keep in mind, this was happening in the middle of winter, so it’s not like I could walk home or anything like that. It was too cold outside. I was too far away from public transportation. Like I said, to use Metro Mobility, you have to book it way ahead of time. So that was not an option. So really, I was left with no options, and there was just a lot of anxiety at that moment not knowing how I would get home because there was no options.
Normally, people could book an Uber or Lyft, and it would come within a few minutes, and they could get home in cases like this. But of course, I had that– I did not have that option because I’m wheelchair-accessible vehicles is a gap on-demand system right now. And so I basically had to wait at the Sports Clips for several hours while my dad, who had taken me there, tried to get the van fixed.
And there was a lot of uncertainty. And luckily, things worked out well where it was able to get fixed. But of course, the question is, what would have happened had there not that– had it not been able to be fixed? The possibility of me being stranded for a more prolonged period of time, and potential safety concerns too had I not been able to wait inside? Luckily, it was in the afternoon, so the Sports Clips was open. But it’s possible that if I’d been stranded outside, of course, winter, that’s an issue. So I think it’s not just about making sure people can go where they want for fun or for social activities, but there can be a real safety issue as well.
DAVID FENLEY: Thank you, Sumukha, for sharing that. So this has been persistent in Minnesota for many, many years. And it’s been worked on at the legislature for probably just as many years with little to no progress. Not because of either one of you. You’re both transportation leaders. You’re both leaders when it comes to making sure that bills that support folks with disabilities move through the House and the Senate. Representative Elkins, can you speak to a little bit about some solutions and things that you’re working on?
STEVE ELKINS: Sure. Yeah. Thank you. I’ve been working with the Council on Disabilities for several sessions now on a bill that would assess a surcharge on shared mobility rides in order to create a fund that would allow the shared mobility– the transportation network companies to acquire a fleet of accessible vehicles. That’s the big problem that people who need wheelchairs have, is that hardly any vehicles in the shared mobility fleets are wheelchair-accessible.
So this bill would create a fund that would allow the TNCS to buy a fleet of– a little closer yet. OK– A fleet of accessible vehicles specifically to handle the needs of people with wheelchair dependency. And we haven’t gotten it back. We were really hopeful, actually, that last session that as part of the negotiations over raising the pay of the shared mobility drivers, that we would be able to get this on as a writer. And we were really disappointed last year when that didn’t happen. But we keep trying. And Senator Jim Carlson in the Senate is the Senate author on that bill, and we’re plugging away at it.
DAVID FENLEY: Thank you for that. I do remember that from five or six years ago. It’s been ongoing for quite a long time.
STEVE ELKINS: Yeah.
DAVID FENLEY: Can you speak to what’s going on in the Senate? You can also speak more broadly to accessible transportation. I know you’ve been an advocate for especially public transportation. When your party is in power, you tend to chair the Transportation Committee in the Senate.
SCOTT DIBBLE: Well, thank you. Thank you so much for the question, and allow me to go a little more broadly as well. But first, let me speak to the proposal that’s in front of us. Senator Jim Carlson, as representative Elkins said, is carrying the Senate companion. And is very hard at work trying to figure out the best approach. He’s talking with the variety of stakeholders. We were scheduled for a hearing a few weeks ago, but it’s– apparently, he withdrew the bill from consideration pending further conversation and trying to figure out what makes the most sense.
I appreciated Sumukha’s story. The same story that many of you have probably heard is shared by probably a number of you. But Joan Willshire, of course, has an almost identical story where her car broke down. And if I remember the details correctly, it was in the middle of a pretty outrageous snowstorm. And her car needed to be towed. And able-bodied people would just hop into the cab of the tow truck or walk home or whatever. I mean, it’s, like, no problem.
She had zero options. There she is downtown Minneapolis in her wheelchair, and obviously can’t hop up into the cab of the pickup of the tow truck. No TNC, no Lyft or Uber is available to her. There were actually police on the scene who were frantically trying to figure out the solution, none of which were really feasible. She has a motorized wheelchair. There’s really nothing to be done with it in terms of their car’s ability to handle it, and she certainly wasn’t going to have them pick her up and put her in their squad.
So she just motored home. She didn’t live too far away, but had to motor home in her wheelchair in the falling snow. She got a police escort. [LAUGHS] So it’s just– it’s unimaginable to many of us to be caught in a circumstance like this. So this is very, very compelling. I have a lot of urgency– I feel a lot of urgency around this and in close conversation with Senator Carlson on the progress of his conversations so that hopefully we can get something done. It’s just so frustrating that we haven’t had it across the finish line quite yet.
I did want to just mention briefly, the dreaded Metro Mobility. [LAUGHS] Of course, I’ve heard many of the stories that come from the Council on Disability, as well as our constituents. We all get numerous calls every year, every month about service failures at Metro Mobility. We did commission an investigation, what we call a program evaluation by the legislative auditor last year, and the results were presented.
Or I should say, the year before last results were presented last year, and the findings were, of course, distressing, but not surprising, around some of the systematic issues that give rise to all of the service failures that we cite in Metro Mobility. We did hold off on wholesale change to that service pending the outcome of a pilot that we had passed in 2023 that was sponsored by Senator Marty. I don’t know who– were you the house author of the pilot. And that had to do with
STEVE ELKINS: Representative Moller.
SCOTT DIBBLE: Oh, it’s Kelly Moller, who is here waving her hand in the back, was the– and so some of those were very promising, some on-demand elements to it– expansion of service hours, and maybe Representative Moller can help remind us of some of the other details. So now we need to look at those and bring some of those initiatives to scale. Metro Transit, Met Council, also had some pilots that they wanted to have a chance to work out as well.
We did just have a– convene a discussion among a number of senators who really have some energy around this space. Again, Senator Marty, Senator Johnson Stewart, who is my vice chair, Senator Fateh, and myself, and we are interested in, at a minimum, making sure that we pass some provisions that hold the third party contractors more to account for their on-time service, the accuracy, their dispatch, et cetera.
Because it was found that the complaint system just didn’t work. And without data and information, there’s no way to improve the service. And some of the financial incentives were being provided regardless of the standard of care, and some of the financial incentives in terms of sanctions for failures were not being adequately followed or enforced.
So some of those, it’s playing around the margins, I admit. We will enact this year just to hold metro mobility more accountable. But we are going to try to get the TNC piece done. We are going to continue– we saw I saw a little bit of the tail end of the video presentation around micro transit to provide some on-demand, neighborhood-scale accessibility solving some of the last mile issues that we have, connecting people to places where they need to go or regular route scheduled transit service, those sorts of things. I think micro transit is going to be a big part of the picture.
And then you might have heard, of course, that folks who qualify for Metro Mobility in the metro area can access regular transit without any fare, free fare. And that was a pilot that I think we’re going to bring to scale and make that more permanent. So when a trip that you need to take can be made by regular transit and is appropriate to your circumstance, in that particular situation, you can just board the bus or board the LRT without paying any fare. So that’ll be something we do this year as well.
DAVID FENLEY: Thank you all. So it clearly has the potential of being a life or death situation. We’ve already heard two stories. I’m sure there are a lot more stories out there from folks who face these barriers. There are pockets, I know, around greater Minnesota, because this is not just a metro greater Minnesota thing. It’s a problem in both the metro and in greater Minnesota.
We do have pockets– as we saw in the video, we do have pockets of on-demand transportation in greater Minnesota. Usually, ours are limited, and it really depends on what part of the state you live in. But would this solution be statewide? Can any of you actually speak to solutions that might be statewide as opposed to focusing on public transit here in the Twin Cities?
SCOTT DIBBLE: I’ll speak briefly to it. That reminded me of another initiative that we’re awaiting the results from, and that was the dynamic transportation study/pilot that Senator Westrom was the chief author of that was passed. And taking a look at exactly that in greater Minnesota. He’s, of course, a greater Minnesota legislator. So the short answer to your question is, that would be my aspiration, that we provide this kind of on-demand transportation access mobility service to anyone who lives anywhere. I think that’s a minimal expectation. I view it as a fundamental human right. And it just– we’re smart people, and it’s about priorities and values and resources. So let’s do it.
STEVE ELKINS: I think the goMARTI Demonstration Project was– what we just saw on the screen there was a very heartening as a possible model. So we want to see more of that. And autonomous vehicles, I mean, it was noticed that– mentioned that the current law in Minnesota requires an attendant. And I think with the vehicles that are available right now, that would pretty much be required anyway.
I attended the annual TechNet, technology legislative forum in LA in December, and there were actually several vendors of autonomous vehicles there, including several promising looking shuttle type vehicles. But when I talked to the companies about their products and asked them, are these going to be suitable for the use of people using wheelchairs without an attendant? They all said, well, we’re not quite there yet. We’re still going to have to have attendance. So we may be waiting a little bit. But there’s a lot of promising technology advancements happening at the same time.
DAVID FENLEY: Sometimes it feels– is the mic not working. It’s not working. Let’s do this. I know with this topic and many others, a lot of times it feels like folks with disabilities are an afterthought. I think self-driving vehicles– folks with disabilities stand to benefit probably the most out of any group in our society from self driving vehicles. And I know in Minnesota, we have been pushing to keep accessibility at the top. So it’s not– the early adopters, we want folks with disabilities to be early adopters. Can any of you speak to that?
STEVE ELKINS: I have a constituent named Patsy Murphy. Some of you may know her. She’s a self-advocate for the Brain Injury Alliance. And she still talks about this to this day, but there was a day a couple of years ago where VSI labs, which is an autonomous vehicle research company based in St. Louis Park, had one of their demonstration vehicles at the Capitol. And I was able to take Patsy on a ride around the Capitol complex in this VSI car. And it was– I mean, even though it’s not something that’s going to be out there today, just having that experience and being able to envision what this would eventually mean to someone like her. She still talks about that every time I see her when she comes by the Capitol.
DAVID FENLEY: Thank you. How are we doing on time? We got three minutes. Sumukha, maybe we can finish with you. Can you speak to other barriers you may face when it comes to finding accessible transportation, or pretty much whatever you want to talk about? Any particular thing you can add to this?
SUMUKHA TERAKANAMBI: Yeah. I mean, the only other barrier that I’ve faced– and this is not necessarily having to do with on-demand transportation, just transportation in general. One of the issues– so when I’ve used nonemergency medical transportation that’s paid for by the waiver, I’ve had issues where the amount of funding that I received through the waiver did not cover transportation to and from the location that I was going to. So this happened when I was still in college.
Because of limited funding, sometimes on certain days, I would get transportation to my college campus, but then my parents would have to pick me up. And then other days, I could get transportation to and from. So it kind of depended. So I know that that’s an issue where reimbursement for providers is a barrier and something that can affect the availability of transportation.
I did talk a little bit already about the fact that I have to plan– my schedule has to be pretty set for me to get transportation. So that’s the situation I’m in right now where my parents have to really fill in that gap of transportation. So that’s a broader issue. And then I think, like Senator Dibble mentioned, Metro Mobility is– I know there’s a lot of challenges with Metro Mobility, particularly with timeliness and reliability, especially for people who are employed. Because if you’re employed, you have to be at work at a certain time. And so that can be impacted by a lack of transportation as well.
I’m trying to think what else I wanted to add. I guess the last thing I’ll add is like, in terms of the TNCs is the fact that other cities and states have seemed to figure it out. So in other cities, you can get a accessible– wheelchair-accessible vehicle through the app, depending on which city you live in. So some cities, I believe you can do that. And then even states like California, for example, have kind of– they have established a fund to enable on-demand transportation. So there are examples around us.
And even other countries as well. I’ve been to Europe before. And when I was in Paris, I could get a accessible taxi on-demand. So I’ve seen it– actually, in my own personal experience, I’ve seen it happen. And so hopefully, in the next couple of years, Minnesota can look to those examples and join those examples and be a state that prioritizes people with disabilities in transportation. So hopefully, we can get there.
DAVID FENLEY: Thank you all. We are at time. I know we’re just trucking right along here. Transportation, specifically accessible on-demand transportation, I think, is extremely important, probably a keystone when it comes to independence and freedom to values that we hold quite close to ourselves here in this country. So I think this is something that should have happened a while ago. But I’m glad that we have leaders and advocates who are pushing on this. I’m going to pass it back to Quinn. Quinn, come on down. Oh, yeah. One more thing. Hold on real quickly.
SCOTT DIBBLE: I just want to say thank– I just want to say thank you. And my final benediction is please remain in communication and relationship with your elected senators and representatives. That helps us do this work when we’re hearing and getting pressure from our colleagues because they’re getting pressure and engagement and hearing your stories. There’s no substitute. So please, please, please, continue to call, visit, and email your legislators. Thank you.
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