A program that helps transit riders who are disabled travel with ease and avoid crowded trains and buses by offering subsidized costs on rideshare and taxis will be rolled back as the state re-directs funds to prop up the Chicago Transit Authority.
The Regional Transportation Authority reduced their RAP and TAP programs — that pay part of the cost of rideshare or taxi rides for ADA eligible riders — to allowing eight rides a day to just one.
The RAP and TAP Pace programs are more efficient than paratransit and they revolutionized how people who are disabled get around the Chicago area.
The program helps people be “able to get to the places where we want to go, where we have to be,” said Ryan McGraw, a community organizer with Access Living.
Whether it be to work or for an appointment, the 2-year-old RAP and TAP programs helped McGraw get where he needed to be, he said.
“This is really a dignity issue and looking at people with disabilities as equal citizens and giving them equal opportunity,” McGraw said.
The programs surged in popularity, just as public transit faces a fiscal cliff. Nationwide, transit is grappling with the loss of federal covid money.
In Chicago, transit is almost a billion dollars in the hole, and it’s unlikely any more federal money is coming.
Without more funding, CTA, Metra and Pace warned stations will close and bus routes will end.
State lawmakers meet again in Oct. to try to find funding.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
