MN: ‘It’s about time:’ Disabled Minnesotans push for equal access to on-demand transportation

For many Minnesotans, meeting friends for a quick bite at a local eatery or making a last-minute dash for supplies at the local grocery store are relatively quick and easy.

Unless you need a wheelchair or mobility scooter to get around. Then, such errands can take hours or even days to arrange.

That could change. After years of offering few on-demand or short-notice transportation choices to people with disabilities, more transit and transportation companies are touting the kinds of quick-turn errand options that more able-bodied folks have long enjoyed.

From self-driving vans that pick up and drop off folks in and around Grand Rapids to recent “micro” transit services enabling door-to-door trips in the Twin Cities’ southern suburbs, disabled residents may be getting more ride flexibility.

“It’s about time,” said Joan Willshire, who has fought for years to expand transportation options for folks with limited mobility. “We’ve been begging for this for years.”

And more is needed, said Willshire, who uses a mobility scooter and in 2023 had to drive it 10 blocks home after a snowstorm because no cab or Uber could take her.

“The message is getting out there, but it needs to go statewide,” she said.

For years, Metro Mobility has been the primary public transportation service for people with a disability or health issue who are unable to use fixed-route buses and trains. And the program has more than 19,300 active riders each month, according to the Met Council, which administers the program.

But riders have long expressed dissatisfaction, from long waits for buses and rides that don’t show up to untimely drop-offs and missed medical appointments.

Users must book rides one to four days before their trip. Yet, if a bus arrives 29 minutes late for a pickup, it’s still considered on time. All of which make using Metro Mobility for spontaneous travel nearly impossible, disabled advocates say.

New and recent transit offerings are out there — including through Metro Mobility. Called Metro micro, the service offers on-demand service in four zones, said Gerri Sutton, director of Contracted Services for Metro Transit.

“The goal of those services is to connect with higher frequency fixed routes,” she said. “I think that it is an evolution of transit services. It helps fill those holes.”

Riders book a ride from wherever they are in a service area and get dropped off anywhere in the same service area. The shared ride service areas are: north Minneapolis, Roseville, Woodbury and Bloomington. Service in Blaine starts later this month.

In the suburbs, the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority has MVTA Connect, a ride-sharing service that allows customers to book trips on their smartphones from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. It has three zones: Apple Valley, Burnsville, Savage and Rosemount; Eagan, and its newest in Prior Lake and Shakopee. Riders need to say if they are using a mobility device.

Southwest Transit offers an app-based, on-demand service called SW Prime. The service area includes Eden Prairie, Chanhassen, Chaska, Carver and Victoria, but it also goes to Normandale Community College, some locations in Edina and MSP airport.

Erik Hansen, CEO of Southwest Transit, said the service makes it easier for people with disabilities to take short, spontaneous trips in their area. The average wait time for a Prime ride is about 25 minutes, Hansen said.

While the service is limited to its smaller zones, “In general, we provide a good level of service for people with disabilities,” Hansen said. “With these new technologies, we’re going to get even better.”

Steve Pint, president and CEO of Transportation Plus, said that for non-Metro Mobility customers, his company is the only one providing metrowide on-demand transportation to people who need wheelchairs.

They also have a contract to provide on-demand rides to Metro Mobility. Out of their fleet of 400 vehicles, he said, 35 are wheelchair accessible vans.

DJ Lanzoni uses Transportation Plus and Metro Mobility to get around, from medical appointments to his favorite West St. Paul eateries Bvld Tavern and the Fireside. Paralyzed overnight by a stroke of the spine in November 2022, he said he’s learned to adjust his transportation expectations.

Service can be unreliable and wait times can stretch to an hour or more, he said.

“It’s something that you have to accept. You just can’t get in a car at a moment’s notice,” he said of making plans.

Myrna Peterson of Grand Rapids has no complaints. In fact, she’s ecstatic.

Officials there on Tuesday announced that goMARTI, a pilot project using self-driving vans to provide free transportation, is not only being extended, but expanded.

Thanks to state and federal grants, the program run by the Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board will expand from 70 stops in Grand Rapids to more than 150 total in Grand Rapids, Cohasset, Deer River, and Ball Club. There will also be stops within the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Reservation.

In partnership with May Mobility, the service uses self-driving vehicles to give free rides to residents in the area. An attendant in the vehicle provides assistance to people who need it.

More than 27,000 riders have used it since the pilot project started in 2022. The program will now continue through 2028.

It is the first in the world to test autonomous, wheelchair-accessible vehicles in a rural setting, and is being studied for use across the state.

Peterson, who has used a battery-powered wheelchair for 30 years and lives in an assisted-living facility, said goMARTI has given her new freedom.

“It’s improved my quality of life for sure,” Peterson said of regular trips to Target, the grocery store and pharmacy. “I have a friend who is legally blind and goes everywhere.”