A MetroAccess Rider Is Left at the Curb

Elizabeth McKee is 82 and blind. On Tuesday, she left her Woodley Park home for a doctor's appointment in Silver Spring, 12 miles away. She got home eight hours later, so shaken by her travel experience that she nearly collapsed.

"My knees were just like jelly," recalled McKee, who has a heart condition and respiratory problems. "I was terrified."

The story of her eight-hour journey to and from the doctor's office reflects the frustrations of many disabled people who rely on MetroAccess, the publicly funded curb-to-curb van service for people not able to ride the bus or subway: Rides arrive at the wrong time or not at all, drivers get lost, and reservationists give contradictory information.

Many riders say the continuing service problems leave them physically and emotionally exhausted.

In McKee's case, several errors by a new company that is providing MetroAccess service piled up over the course of the day, stranding her at the Silver Spring office building as day turned to night and the staff prepared to lock up.

McKee, whose worst fear is to be stuck by herself in an unfamiliar neighborhood at night, began to panic. Her doctor, Pamela Randolph, worried that McKee might faint. She gave her some juice and crackers. Then, after waiting two hours for a MetroAccess ride that never appeared, the doctor drove her home.

It took an entire day, McKee said, to recover from the ordeal.

The new company, MV Transportation, began providing MetroAccess service to the 16,000 eligible riders Jan. 15 under a four-year, $210 million contract with Metro. Metro said the service provided 4,575 trips Tuesday, with an on-time performance rate of 91 percent.

McKee's troubles began when she tried to book her trip. The MetroAccess system could not take calls from her rotary telephone, so she had to call someone at Metro, who transferred her to a MetroAccess reservationist.

She made a reservation for a noon pickup for her 1 p.m. appointment in Silver Spring. She also had a reserved return trip at 4 p.m. from the doctor's office. Because she can't see and needs help walking, she asked to be picked up at building entrances.

The driver arrived at 12:37 p.m. for the noon pickup, parking on a nearby street instead of at the building's entrance. McKee said it was difficult to navigate her way to the car without help. But once aboard, she felt comforted by the sophisticated audio directions available to the driver.

"A voice was telling him to turn left and turn right, and I thought, 'My goodness, this is fancy,' " she said. But instead of going to the doctor in Silver Spring, the driver headed to a wrong address, on 19th Street in downtown Washington.