JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Transportation Authority Board will soon take a final vote on whether to approve a pilot program that would jack up rates by more than 300 percent for a popular service used by disabled and elderly residents.
Ahead of that meeting, city council members spent Wednesday morning grilling JTA leadership over the plan.
The rate hike proposal comes as JTA is looking to cut costs after exceeding its budget by nearly $19 million last year.
The agency’s plan calls for reduced fares for virtually all of its services, with one key exception.
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The Connexion Plus premium paratransit service is essentially like Uber or Lyft for the elderly and disabled in Jacksonville.
Unlike the base Connexion Service, riders don’t have to share trips with other customers.
But JTA has seen annual costs of operating the service rise from $2.2 million to $6.4 million over the past four years.
“The projected cost for that service this year if we did not make adjustments, was gonna be around $8 million,” JTA Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Jessica Shepler said.
Councilmember Will Lahnen (R-District 3) calculated the impact of those proposed rate adjustments for one of his constituents.
He said they would see the price of their average trip to increase from $28 to $91 starting February 1st.
“You had a program that was helping out and a lot of our disabled community, elderly community, and we’re just concerned about what changes is this going to mean to them,” Lahnen said.
Council members floated a means-based fare or even a phased-in approach.
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Councilmember Joe Carlucci (R-District 5) suggested the agency consider a smaller rate hike this year, and if data showed an additional hike was justified, prices could go up again next year.
“Like, we can see the justification to pay more for a premium service, but I think with anything, I think we even did this with part of the garbage fee, part of another fee is, look, phase this in,” Carlucci said.
JTA agreed to look into a phased-in option.
Agency leaders also noted the agency plans to actively monitor the rate hike’s impact on ridership during the six-month pilot program.
JTA CEO Nat Ford said it’s his hope that more paratransit riders consider the base Connexion service, which he noted will actually see fares drop by 33 percent under the current proposal.
“We’re really taking a private sector mindset in terms of, premium service pay a premium fare, but if some trips that you actually need to take, you can use the Connexion service at a much lower rate, a third lower fare on Connexion,” Ford said. ”So, give us a shot on Connexion and that may even eliminate the need for Connexion Plus because our base Connexion service provides a high-quality trip.”
The JTA Board is set to take a final vote on the terms of the pilot program during its meeting on Thursday at 2 PM.
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