The future of Detroit’s paratransit services remains unclear

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> it's half past four am on east berry street.

the roads are nearly empty on this early friday morning.

but the trader millettee williams is up and waiting for the pair transit van to arrive getting up.

this early is just part of her weekday routine today.

she's using it to get to her dialysis treatment.

>> on monday said to them, says so i get a one-way trip.

might they start at three o'clock in the morning?

and my wife is from four of the five roundabout ten o'clock.

i'm off the machine and then my family members come and pick me up and then i go to work.

>> and then at the known i get off about two, thirty, so i have another rise scheduled for metro that this monday and on tuesday from nine ago to work and with the back to dallas is their stay walk again and then on fridays.

i do that alice's.

>> then picks up and drops off other passengers on the way to williams treatment.

like many people using the service.

williams is visually impaired.

>> discuss it is legally blind.

so i have vision but not clear.

tastes like a if you put a ziploc bag t i that's what i see.

>> williams has been legally blind.

since twenty ten, she spent ten months in kalamazoo learning to navigate life without full vision.

that included learning how to catch the bus now that she couldn't drive herself.

>> when i came back to detroit, i want to continue that some of the second owls and depending on my girlfriends on my my sons, i france the, you know, different people.

my neighbor to take me back and forth has signed up for metro that.

>> metro lift is detroit paratransit service transportation options specifically for people living with disabilities or other mobility challenges.

williams has been using the service since twenty seventeen.

how do you make the decision to schedule?

>> or get a ride from someone else who went to dallas is on monday.

when you see him friday, when i get up that machine about ten o'clock, i'd be a stream, the sick and weak.

so therefore, if i take metro that it's no telling when i get home and how will make it.

so therefore, my family members come and pick me up on monday with some friday.

everybody got a certain day.

>> in november city council voted against a new contract for transdev.

the company that operated the paratransit service riders who use the service often complain about how unreliable the company was.

william said drivers would leave passengers in the wrong locations, picked him up late and sometimes not pick them up at all.

>> this is some time plus training.

but we do have no other choice.

how we don't get to the doctors.

how we don't get to the grocery store, how we don't get tired.

treat ms a cancer patients since that they do.

they use metro live as well.

maybe all scooters.

it's horrible.

>> detroit's paratransit service could look very different by summer.

however, at the detroit department of transportation office, we sat down with michelle culls be he's the executive director of transit for the city.

>> at the end of last year, obviously there was a little bit of a debate about if there should be a contract extension or or approval for transdev.

a lot of folks in the eighty a community, we're fans of them.

could you briefly describe just kind of how that resolve that so from when they contract was rejected to where we are now?

>> sure, it's a pretty straightforward.

put out an rfp request for proposal for service.

there were two providers that responded.

one was people's and one was trans.

that the end result was that though thirty percent people's express we're approved and the other seventy percent was not.

>> in december, mayor mike duggan used his emergency powers to make a temporary fix to the problem of not.

>> i was really excited that he gave us the tools and do our job and that was to move forward with additional providers to be able to fill that gap.

>> the city started seeking out new bids for the long term contract last month.

>> now that dea dot runs the entire system.

what sort of changes have you noticed as the person in charge of running the system and what have you been hearing from the people who use the pair transit system?

>> well, i will tell you, we took it over the beginning of the year and the response has been like night and day.

they like the customer service.

we're providing professional service.

we are hand and complaints expeditiously.

and the overall general response is very positive.

>> but what do people who rely on the system like william say about the new companies providing service and how does she compare to transdev?

>> you rode with people's express today.

if you could rate them out of ten, what would you rate people's express and then what would you rate transdev out of ten?

>> okay.

people as they always have a good drivers and therefore one thing i like about people's now, they have cars so that a lot of seniors that can i get up in those high bays can get in a little car.

so i say they service for now.

i give them about eight and a half.

>> okay.

it's pretty good in what about trans tense zero.

and as for the long-term solution with six months from now, what do you want to see happen?

what would you like to see dot do?

>> i would like to be consistent with that drivers.

consistent is a clean thing.

take your u c c news, get out of it and help them win.

you know, they hand the camp and they barely can get a hand.

>> i'm definitely be own timeline.

>> i know sometimes hard to do that because when you're working with a large cities more than one client.

so what thousand rise today?

>> the department of justice is now looking to ensure the city isn't violating the americans with disabilities act by failing disabled passengers.

>> so i in the stands are, but they need a better system, a much better system than what we have now.

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