Three years after Handi-Transit complaint filed… still waiting

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This article was published 27/12/2018 (2201 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 40-year Handi-Transit user says the quality of the city service is worse than ever, and she’s appalled at how long it’s taken the provincial ombudsman to investigate rider concerns.

“I just don’t think they’re looking at it as a real important issue,” Terry McIntosh said Friday of the provincial watchdog.

Next month will mark three years since the Independent Living Resource Centre filed an official complaint with the ombudsman’s office over allegations of substandard service — and worse — on the part of Handi-Transit.

In January 2016, the centre approached the ombudsman after receiving a host of complaints from riders and what it described as months of fruitless discussions with the City of Winnipeg.

Because of the complexity of the issue, some observers felt it would take the ombudsman’s office a year, perhaps 18 months, to investigate and publish its findings. But almost three years have gone by, and the office has yet to produce its report.

A spokeswoman for the ombudsman said in an email Friday the report should be out “early in 2019.”

Asked why the process has taken so long, she would only say the report would set out “our investigative process, with some info about the timeline,” and the office would answer further questions at that time.

The centre’s office was closed Friday. The resource centre has said in the past it spent two years holding feedback sessions with Handi-Transit users and meeting with lawyers before submitting the complaint.

The centre was told of riders being dropped off at the wrong location, including an instance of a blind person intentionally dropped off at a random spot after a disagreement with a driver. In another instance, a rider was left alone outside a doctor’s office that hadn’t yet opened.

Drivers were often late, clients weren’t helped onto or from buses, and Handi-Transit funding from the city and province was unstable, the complaint alleged.

In the intervening years, the service has only gotten worse, said McIntosh, who retired in April, but still does some contract work. She also relies on Handi-Transit — to be rebranded as Winnipeg Transit Plus next year — to do her shopping and to meet friends.

“It’s the worst that I’ve ever seen,” she said Friday.

‘It’s the worst that I’ve ever seen’– Terry McIntosh, who has used Handi-Transit for 40 years, on the service’s deteriorating performance

Recently, she was heading to a work-related appointment. When her booked ride did not arrive, she called and was told her bus was “an hour behind” schedule.

City spokeswoman Alissa Clark said the centre’s complaint was comprehensive and “required significant review to fully understand the complexities of the concerns that were identified.”

She said the city has been co-operating fully with the ombudsman’s investigation, “providing information and answering questions in a timely manner.”

In an email, she said since the complaint was filed, the service has “continued to make changes to improve the efficiency of its service and address concerns that have been expressed by its users.”

Clark said improvements include introducing new software to “enhance the transparency” of the service, developing a comprehensive user guide for all registrants, and updating and enhancing information on the service’s website.

Handi-Transit, a part of the city’s public transit service, provides door-to-door transportation for people who are unable to use the city’s fixed-route transit system because they are legally blind or have a physical disability that significantly impairs mobility.

Handi-Transit received 548,997 trip requests and carried 481,830 passengers last year. So far in 2018, it’s received 533,729 trip requests and carried 463,946 passengers, the city said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca