Who We Are | Resources | Contact Us | Current RAP Activities
Welcome to the RIDE Advocacy Project (RAP) Website! If you'd like to help improve THE RIDE — the MBTA's transportation service for people with disabilities — you're in the right place. (For information on registering a complaint about THE RIDE visit our “Making Complaints: A Constructive Approach” page.)
Click here to SEE A SLIDESHOW that features three people who use THE RIDE and a cofounder of Livable Streets Alliance (LSA) talking about what their “ideal city” would look like. LSA cofounder Jeff Rosenblum believes that “an ideal city should be defined by how it’s experienced by the people that live, work, and play there.” Photography by Erin Edwards, audio by Katrina Grigg-Saito Click here to HEAR A RADIO SHOW that features three people who use THE RIDE and a cofounder of Livable Streets Alliance (LSA) talking about what their “ideal city” would look like. RIDE user and RAP Committee member Karen Nurt says, “I try really hard not to be angry, but there are times when THE RIDE is very anxiety provoking.” Produced by Katrina Grigg-Saito |
Who We Are
The RIDE Advocacy Project (RAP), an initiative of Boston Self Help Center, is a grassroots community-organizing effort aimed at bringing THE RIDE, the MBTA paratransit service, into compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. RAP members, most of whom have disabilities or chronic illness, are deeply concerned about the poor quality of RIDE service and its negative impact on RIDE users. We are committed to bringing about improvements in RIDE service by building alliances within the larger disability community, as well as among health care and service providers, and together holding the MBTA and its vendors accountable for providing a safe, reliable, accessible service to all eligible riders.
What We're Doing
RIDE Users Are Part of the Solution for a Better RIDE!
Chemical Sensitivity and Transportation Access
Boston Self Help Center's MCS Project recently gave two trainings about multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) to key RIDE personnel. Click here to FIND OUT MORE.
RIDE Users Voice Their Concerns
In the fall of 2005, the MBTA held five public meetings throughout the RIDE catchment
area about THE RIDE and about disability access to subways and buses. A team
of independent consultants hired by the T listened to the concerns and suggestions
of RIDE users and the T’s other customers with
disabilities, including seniors. It was a great opportunity for RIDE users
to voice their concerns about the quality of RIDE service — and in doing
so to be part of the solution for a more reliable and safer RIDE.
Click here for an UNOFFICIAL REPORT on the public meetings.
What We've Done
Ongoing 2005, 2006 & into 2007: RAP is an active member of the Project Advisory Group (PAG), which was formed when the MBTA hired the independent firm in early 2005 (see Winter/Spring 2005 below). Comprised of representatives of the independent firm, MBTA consumers with disabilities, seniors, and MBTA staff, the PAG helps the firm shape its recommendations for T improvement.
Fall 2006 & into 2007: RAP is working closely with Boston Self Help Center's MCS Project, which is, in turn, working closely with the MBTA, to improve access to THE RIDE for people with severe chemical sensitivity.
Summer 2006: RAP wrote a letter to the MBTA's general manager, and spoke out publicly, asking the T not to raise RIDE fares. Among the arguments we presented: (1) noncompliance of the T with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and (2) the hardship of a fare increase for people with disabilities, who are among those with the lowest incomes in the nation.
Spring 2006: RAP conducted an informal survey to assess the need for THE RIDE or a similar transportation service to be accessible to people with severe chemical sensitivity. Respondents, most currently unable to use public transportation because of their chemical sensitivity, were enthusiastic about the possibility of such a service
Summer/Fall 2005: RAP encouraged RIDE users and their supporters to attend five public meetings that the MBTA held about THE RIDE and about disability access to subways and buses.
Winter/Spring 2005: An independent firm, hired by the MBTA at RAP’s request, began its job of thoroughly reviewing the quality of RIDE service and making recommendations to the T for improvements. The Project Advisory Group (PAG), of which RAP is a member, was formed for the purposes of this 18-month project.
Summer/Fall 2004: RAP played
an instrumental role in hiring the independent firm to assess RIDE service
and make recommendations for improvements.
Spring 2004: Major Victory! RAP met with the
MBTA Board of Directors and asked that an independent monitor be hired to assess
THE RIDE. The MBTA Board agreed to our request.
Winter 2003/2004: RAP organized RIDE users
and their friends and supporters to attend a hearing with the Boston City Council.
Close to 100 people attended the three hours of testimony.
Fall 2003: RAP created the "RIDE
Users' Bill Of Rights" and "THE
RIDE: Unreliable, Unsafe, and Unfair," which laid out RAP's principal
demands.
Spring 2003: More than 200 complaint forms,
developed by RAP, had been filled out by RIDE users and returned to us.
Winter 2002/2003 : RAP developed our own RIDE complaint form, which we distributed to over 30 agencies that serve people who use THE RIDE.
RAP believes THE RIDE can be fixed. We also know our work
is not yet done.
Please join us in our efforts to make THE RIDE on-time,
reliable, and safe!
"Many times an individual's biggest disability is THE
RIDE."
Elizabeth Wilson, Director of Rehabilitation, Vocational Advancement Center,
Brighton, MA
RAP
is a project of Boston Self Help Center (BSHC), which has provided community-based
counseling, advocacy, education, organizing, and information and referral services
by and for people with disabilities for over 25 years. RAP is supported in part
by the Unitarian Universalist's Fund for a Just Society and The Boston Foundation.
