Editorial
Access-A-Ride Veto Hurts Those Most Vulnerable

"It's déjà vu all over again," legendary baseball figure Yogi Berra is supposed to have said. The remark loses its amusing qualities when applied to two successive governors of New York state vetoing bills by Queens legislators that would extend Access-A-Ride service into Nassau County.

Access-A-Ride, also called paratransit, provided by the MTA, offers shared ride, door-to-door transportation service to people who are unable to use public transportation due to disability. Many Queens residents, especially senior citizens, and many of whom live in parts of Queens where subway and bus service are limited, use Access-A-Ride. Many of those same users of Access-A-Ride have serious medical needs. Also, for many Access-A-Ride users, the nearest physicians' offices and hospitals are in Western Nassau County.

Access-A-Ride does not transport passengers into Nassau County. When Queens residents need to reach a destination in Nassau County via Access-A-Ride, they must ride to the county line, cross a busy major thoroughfare and board Able- Ride, a comparable service that Nassau County provides. Both services require advance appointments. Since there is no guarantee that Access-A-Ride or Able- Ride will coordinate schedules, the chances of being late for a medical appointment are quite high. Many times, people who rely on Access-A-Ride find that the only way they can keep a medical appointment, visit family members or reach any destination that others can access readily by either public or private transportation is instead to use private car services.

In 2006 Assemblymember Mark Weprin sponsored a bill extending Access- A-Ride service throughout Nassau County. The bill was rejected by most of his colleagues. He then introduced a modified bill that extended Access-A-Ride service five miles into Nassau County. That bill passed the Assembly in 2005 and in 2006 passed the state senate as well, only to be vetoed by then Governor George Pataki.

Weprin and state Senator Frank Padavan sponsored another bill in 2007. This legislation, like Weprin's modified bill, which Pataki vetoed, would allow Access-A-Ride users to travel to destinations up to as far as five miles into Nassau County. Déjà vu all over again- Governor Eliot Spitzer, who succeeded Pataki in January of this year, vetoed the legislation once more.

Pataki, Weprin alleged, acceded to MTA cost concerns. To our knowledge, Spitzer gave no reasons for his vetoing the Weprin-Padavan bill.

We agree completely with Weprin's argument that it makes no sense to deny senior citizens and the disabled access to medical facilities via public transportation. We also applaud Padavan's announced intention again to introduce the bill in the upcoming legislative session. We hope, too, that Spitzer this time will not be swayed by arguments from the MTA that extending Access-A-Ride service into Nassau County and Able-Ride service into Queens is not cost-effective.

Some of the people who use Access-ARide and Able-Ride have worked and paid taxes and ridden public transportation all their lives until age and infirmity made it impossible. Other disabled individuals depend on fast, efficient, easy access to medical facilities to maintain a barely adequate quality of life, if not for their very lives. It will be a sad commentary indeed on how we regard the oldest and least able among us if this legislation is again shot down.