A MetroAccess Rider Is Left at the Curb
Blind Woman Irate After 8-Hour Ordeal

By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 6, 2006

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.

"He insisted it was the right address," McKee said. "I said, 'No, we need to go to Silver Spring.' " A security guard noticed the MV car. At McKee's request, he looked over the driver's schedule and saw that the driver had mistakenly driven to a previous drop-off location.

By the time McKee arrived at the doctor's office, it was 1:38 p.m., well past her appointment time. The office had to fit her in between other appointments, and sometime after 3 p.m., McKee realized she would not be finished in time for her 4 p.m. return trip.

She called MetroAccess to reschedule. After many tries, she finally reached a reservationist, who changed her pickup to 5:30 p.m.

"I was there when she made the phone call to change the time," Randolph said. "They agreed to pick her up at 5:30."

But not long after that call, the doctor's office was informed that a MetroAccess driver was out front, ready to bring McKee home.

"I informed the driver that she had just finished placing a call changing the time," Randolph said. "We just assumed that information had not been relayed to him."

McKee finished her appointment and went to the lobby around 5:15 p.m. to wait for her ride.

"I waited and waited, and it started getting dark," McKee said. She had not eaten since 11 a.m. and felt light-headed, so she lay down on a bench. By 6 p.m., the building was emptying, and the cleaning crew had arrived. Terrified that she would be locked out, she asked a cleaning person to take her back to the doctor's office.

The doctor immediately called MetroAccess. A reservationist told her McKee's pickup was canceled. No, that's wrong, Randolph recalled telling the reservationist. The pickup was rescheduled, she said.

"I told them, 'She's sitting here, waiting for her ride,' " Randolph recalled. The doctor warned the reservationist that the building's front doors would be locked and asked that MetroAccess call her when the driver arrived.

"The person on the other end said they would send someone right away" and confirmed the address, Randolph said. Around that time, McKee said, she also talked to MetroAccess. She said she was told by the reservationist that the driver had gone home and that she had to find another way home.

"I told her about my disabilities. I said I was tired and upset and asked to speak to someone in charge at Metro," McKee said. "She said there's nothing she can do about it."

A dispatch supervisor at MV referred all inquiries to Metro. Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said it was "not an appropriate response" for someone from MetroAccess to tell McKee to find her own way home, "if this is what allegedly happened."

At 6 p.m., MetroAccess still has drivers on the road, he said, and there were several supervisors in the call center. MV records show her original 4 p.m. pickup was canceled, but there are no records for another return trip, he said. He said he had no information to account for the contradictory information provided by the reservationists.

"We recognize there are still issues that need to be worked out with MV and MetroAccess," Taubenkibel said.