Rethinking (some) urban schoolbus and paratransit service

Public transit systems spend tons of money in a region like Washington providing service to seniors and the disabled who find it difficult to use public transit. The fares are capped at something like $2.5o each way, even though the cost of a trip is a lot, maybe $30 or more.

Similarly, many of these school buses zipping around special education students have from 1-3 students on them, even though the capacity of each bus is much greater.

Maybe we should use taxis in part to deal with this kind of service. Rather than support big companies and spend tens of millions of dollars on dedicated vehicles, by using taxis we would reduce the amount of money needed to buy vehicles, we would help small business, and through this kind of utilization of taxis, likely we would enhance the provision of service around the city, serving more of the areas that are likely underserved now.

Washington Post photo.

The transit contract is for many millions of dollars and there are many complaints about service. While maybe some vehicles need to be purchased, if the contractor focused on developing and maintaining dispatching and service follow up infrastructure (software, call center, etc.), then probably more service could be obtained for less money.

It costs about $50 million/year currently. From "Disabled Riders Question Need For MetroAccess Recertification" in the Post:

The contractor, MV Transportation, provides rides to about 19,000 customers in Virginia, Maryland and the District whose ability to use Metrorail or Metrobus is limited.

MetroAccess is the transit agency's costliest and fastest-growing service, reflecting the needs of the area's aging population. The service accounts for about 6 percent of the agency's $1.2 billion operating budget, and ridership is soaring, increasing 16 percent this year from last year, statistics show. Riders took about 5,300 trips in March.

According to a consultant's report that has not been released publicly, MetroAccess ridership in 2013 is projected to be nearly 2.8 million trips, more than double the 1.2 million trips taken last year. Those projections mean that the next five years could bring dramatically higher costs.

I don't know how much DC is spending on special education busing, but it is considerable, tens of millions of dollars. Granted many trips will require specially equipped buses, but probably many don't. Those trips could be diverted in a manner similar to that suggested above.

Also see "Fuel Prices Squeeze School Districts" from the New York Times.