LA: New Orleans promised to fix its paratransit system. A year later, what's changed?

A year after New Orleans' public transit system promised major reforms to paratransit operations amid reports of missed pickups and excessively long trips, the Regional Transit Authority has only marginally improved the service.

The RTA's federally mandated paratransit shuttles, largely used by elderly and disabled residents, arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled pickup time for just 57% of their October trips, according to the latest RTA data.

In October 2024, they arrived within 15 minutes exactly half of the time. The agency's goal is to arrive within the window 85% of the time.

The numbers indicate modest progress but suggest the transit authority has fallen short of its promises to properly serve the city's neediest riders, who are often en route to doctors' appointments, work or school.

"It's the anguish that you get that you're not going to be on time ... It's very stressful," said Evelynda Grogan, who is 84 and legally blind. Earlier this month, she scheduled an 8 a.m. pickup for a 10 a.m. doctor's appointment. She was dropped off in the nick of time, she said.

"We might be blind. We might be deaf. But still we're a person and we have feelings," Grogan added.

Though the agency promised several specific improvements last year — like buying better scheduling software and hiring a vendor who can more efficiently decide whether riders can use the service — many of those steps haven't happened, RTA officials acknowledged this week.

Agency managers say they've begun manually reviewing routes with an eye toward efficiency. The RTA also hired a new director of paratransit operations in July and its board is on track in January to consider a new contract for the scheduling software the agency says it needs, among other steps.

Paratransit "is a central focus that is seeing constructive improvements," said RTA CEO Lona Edwards Hankins in a recent statement. She added that the agency's issues with the service are a direct result of mismanagement under Transdev, the private company that ran the transit agency until the RTA severed ties with the firm in 2020.

Agency at a turning point

The RTA has notched meager improvements to its beleaguered paratransit service as the agency nears a crossroads. Though Hankins, appointed permanent CEO in 2023, and the agency's current board had the confidence of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, it's unclear if Mayor-elect Helena Moreno has the same faith in the RTA's leadership.

The seven-member board, five members of which are appointed by the mayor, is in charge of selecting the CEO. Moreno takes office Jan. 12 and can reappoint or replace the mayoral appointees at that point. The two other board members are appointed by the City Council and state lawmakers.

A spokesperson for Moreno's transition would not say which way the incoming mayor was leaning. "Our transition teams are hard at work developing recommendations to improve public transit in New Orleans," Todd Ragusa said in a statement. "We look forward to implementing those recommendations and reforms upon taking office in January."

The board's current president, Fred Neal Jr., who Cantrell appointed in 2018, said in a statement that he expects to see "significant improvements in paratransit in the coming year" and believes the RTA is "on the right path to address longstanding paratransit issues, many of which predate our current CEO and my time on the RTA board."

The board's makeup is a far cry from how it was situated before Hankins arrived, when Jefferson Parish appointed three board members as the RTA sought to live up to the "regional" in its name. Those ties were severed last year, however, after Jefferson members resigned and Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng formally withdrew the parish from the agency amid questions about whether its leadership had been truthful with the board about a construction contract that ballooned in value. The FBI later launched an investigation into the matter; it's unclear as of now where that stands.

The RTA's former board chair, Mark Raymond Jr., also resigned last year amid allegations that he leveraged his power to receive special treatment when riding on the agency's paratransit service. Raymond denied the allegations.

Under Hankins' leadership, the RTA has also experienced significant turnover in upper-level management and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars settling with former employees to stave off potential lawsuits. (In October, the board agreed to a $200,000 settlement with the agency's former paratransit director, Natika Brooks, after she claimed she was wrongfully terminated by Hankins last year, in part, for raising concerns about Raymond's behavior.)

Hankins, for her part, has highlighted successes under her watch in securing federal grants, developing a fleet management and capital improvement plan, and overseeing updates in the agency's financial management software and procurement processes.

"The past five years have been spent addressing very significant challenges that emerged from private management of RTA," Hankins said. " Paratransit is without question one of these issues."

Audit finds big problems

RTA officials vowed to improve its paratransit service, also called the LIFT service, last year after The Times-Picayune reported on an internal audit that concluded that the agency had engaged in "patterns and practices" that limited the availability of the service for ADA-eligible riders, in violation of federal rules.

The 33-page audit, which Hankins commissioned, found that a "substantial number" of trips were either excessively long, meaning that they took longer than they would have on the fixed-route bus and streetcar system, or had untimely pickups.

The RTA considers a shuttle "on-time" if it arrives within 15 minutes of a scheduled pickup and waits at least five minutes for a rider.

But auditors found that the agency had been "inflating" the performance metric by counting as "on-time" trips that arrived too early. The RTA began reporting a more accurate number to the board in March.

The agency also vowed to upgrade its scheduling software, which hasn't been updated since 2017 and often requires drivers to take circuitous routes around town, and to hire a firm to streamline its process for determining whether riders are eligible for the service. Neither has happened.

The RTA planned to seek board approval for new software in March. But plans were tabled after officials discovered that the employee tasked with developing the bid for the work had communicated with the vendor eventually selected for the contract while writing the request for bids.

Instead of issuing another solicitation, the RTA plans to procure the software by piggybacking off of a state contract. The agency's board on Jan. 26 is expected to consider hiring Spare Labs via a cooperative purchasing contract the firm Carahsoft has with the state, according to an RTA spokesperson. The board, at the same meeting, will also consider a contract with a vendor to speed up eligibility determinations.

Hankins has said it will take at least six months to implement the new scheduling software.

No 'lasting changes'

Sheila Morris, who is 75 and lives in New Orleans East, isn't waiting for the RTA to get its act together. Speaking at a board meeting last year, Morris described missing multiple doctors' appointments and being forced to stand outside in the cold and heat for hours on end for a shuttle to pick her up.

" Paratransit has our attention," Neal said after Morris' remarks.

"Not only do you expect more, you deserve more," Hankins added. "I am sorry for the way that you have been treated."

In a text message this week, Morris said she received one follow-up call from a supervisor after her testimony but nothing else. She said there were no "lasting changes."

"I have moved on from their services and have been using Uber/ Lyft for medical transportation," she said.

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