A MODEL PROCESS FOR DETERMINING PARATRANSIT ELIGIBILITY

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) encompasses some of the most sweeping civil rights legislation seen in the United States in the past thirty years. Its impact on public transportation has been no less than revolutionary as transit authorities respond to its mandates of providing both accessible fixed route service and complementary paratransit service for those people whose disabilities prevent them from using fixed route service independently, either all of the time or under certain circumstances. The combination of the relatively high cost of paratransit service, the large number of eligible individuals and the scarcity of financial resources have created a crisis for many transit authorities struggling to implement the ADA regulations.