JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Jacksonville Transportation Authority is pumping the brakes on its plan to increase fares for its premium paratransit service for at least two months. <\/p>\n
Russ Davis is blind, and one of the roughly 3,800 JTA customers who utilize the agency\u2019s premium single-rider paratransit service Connexion Plus.<\/p>\n
He said when that service launched in 2019, it was a game-changer for the local disabled community.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt 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,\u201d said Davis.<\/p>\n On Thursday, Davis and several other disabled residents came to speak out against JTA\u2019s pilot program, which reduces rates for virtually all of its services, except Connexion Plus.<\/p>\n That service would instead see average fares more than triple.<\/p>\n For Davis, that means his current $12 round trip out to the beaches would cost him over $50.<\/p>\n \u201cSomething I\u2019m not able to do, and most citizens in this community can\u2019t do it either,\u201d said Davis.<\/p>\n The rate hike is intended to reduce operating costs, which have grown by more than 800 percent since the launch of Connexion Plus.<\/p>\n But after facing backlash from members of city council about the plan Wednesday<\/a>, the JTA Board agreed to pump the brakes on its plans to raise fares for Connexion Plus.<\/p>\n Under the plan approved in Thursday\u2019s board meeting, the rate hikes for the service will be delayed until April 2nd.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n JTA Board Member Donald Horner III said he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really hopeful that we find a solution over the course of the next couple months by that April 2nd deadline, which I support,\u201d said JTA Board Member Donald Horner III. \u201dGive us a little bit of time so that we don\u2019t lose riders due to costs.\u201d<\/p>\n But Councilmember Rory Diamond (R-District 13), who called the proposed rate hikes \u201cmorally wrong\u201d in Wednesday\u2019s meeting<\/a>, argued JTA should find the money within its own budget to continue the service without raising fares.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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,\u201d said Diamond.<\/p>\n But Davis said he remains hopeful some kind of solution will be reached before the April deadline.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would certainly allow the disabled community to live the lives they want to live and continue to work and be involved in the community,\u201d said Davis.<\/p>\n While the Connexion Plus rate hike was pushed back, the rate reductions for other JTA services will still kick in on February 1st. <\/p>\n That includes a 33 percent rate reduction for JTA\u2019s multi-rider base Connexion service, which serves the same disabled and elderly customers as Connexion Plus.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Jacksonville Transportation Authority is pumping the brakes on its plan to increase fares for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":535986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,15619,5229,226221,24745,237062,3188,723,11561,46580,7310,98098,77156,48908,18708,17918,425,237059,13824,237061,237060,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-535985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-action_news_jack","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-connection_plus","12":"tag-davis","13":"tag-donald_horner","14":"tag-fl","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-jack","17":"tag-jacks","18":"tag-jacksonville","19":"tag-jacksonville_transportation_authority","20":"tag-jake_stan","21":"tag-jake_stoan","22":"tag-jta","23":"tag-lavilla","24":"tag-local","25":"tag-patransit","26":"tag-rory_diamond","27":"tag-russ_davis","28":"tag-service_connection_plus","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-of-america","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115942034319136362","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}