JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Transportation Authority is pumping the brakes on its plan to increase fares for its premium paratransit service for at least two months.
Russ Davis is blind, and one of the roughly 3,800 JTA customers who utilize the agency’s premium single-rider paratransit service Connexion Plus.
He said when that service launched in 2019, it was a game-changer for the local disabled community.
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“It allowed us to really tighten up our schedules, be much more efficient in what we needed to do, and the cost was not that much more than the previous rides,” said Davis.
On Thursday, Davis and several other disabled residents came to speak out against JTA’s pilot program, which reduces rates for virtually all of its services, except Connexion Plus.
That service would instead see average fares more than triple.
For Davis, that means his current $12 round trip out to the beaches would cost him over $50.
“Something I’m not able to do, and most citizens in this community can’t do it either,” said Davis.
The rate hike is intended to reduce operating costs, which have grown by more than 800 percent since the launch of Connexion Plus.
But after facing backlash from members of city council about the plan Wednesday, the JTA Board agreed to pump the brakes on its plans to raise fares for Connexion Plus.
Under the plan approved in Thursday’s board meeting, the rate hikes for the service will be delayed until April 2nd.
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JTA Board Member Donald Horner III said he’s hopeful the delay will give the agency more time to find additional funds, either from the private sector or the city, to help make up the $3 million JTA estimated it would save by raising the rates.
“I’m really hopeful that we find a solution over the course of the next couple months by that April 2nd deadline, which I support,” said JTA Board Member Donald Horner III. ”Give us a little bit of time so that we don’t lose riders due to costs.”
But Councilmember Rory Diamond (R-District 13), who called the proposed rate hikes “morally wrong” in Wednesday’s meeting, argued JTA should find the money within its own budget to continue the service without raising fares.
“We can start with all the executive salaries, which are through the roof. We can also cut the entire autonomous vehicle program, which costs hundreds of millions of dollars and nobody wants it, and nobody rides it,” said Diamond.
But Davis said he remains hopeful some kind of solution will be reached before the April deadline.
“It would certainly allow the disabled community to live the lives they want to live and continue to work and be involved in the community,” said Davis.
While the Connexion Plus rate hike was pushed back, the rate reductions for other JTA services will still kick in on February 1st.
That includes a 33 percent rate reduction for JTA’s multi-rider base Connexion service, which serves the same disabled and elderly customers as Connexion Plus.
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