Labor and disability advocates at odds over future of Chicago-area paratransit

Chicago Tribune

2 days ago

Cathleen O'Brien's Logan Square apartment is across the street from the California Blue Line station, close enough that she can hear the trains go by.
But O'Brien uses a wheelchair, and the California station isn't accessible. She can't drive. So to get to her work as a therapist — she has two jobs, one at a substance use clinic in Lawndale, and one working with kids on the South Side — O'Brien takes an Uber.
She does so using a subsidized program that launched last year through Pace, the suburban bus agency that is responsible for administering federally mandated paratransit throughout the Chicago area, including in the city.
Riders like O'Brien, 36, say the rideshare program, which launched in March 2024, has been revolutionary for Chicago-area residents with disabilities. But the practice has put disability advocates at odds with organized labor, which sees the program as a way for Pace to outsource union jobs at taxpayer expense.
Pace spent $11.56 million on the subsidized Uber program in 2024 and has spent $8.6 million so far this year, according to payment records reviewed by the Tribune. Some of those payments were made for rides taken during the program's pilot phase prior to March last year.
The agency has spent $2.4 million on trips provided during the same time period by Uzurv, a private rideshare service specifically for paratransit riders.
To use traditional paratransit, Americans with Disabilities Act-certified riders have to call for reservations a day ahead. Drivers are given a 30-minute window for pickup, so the program can be unreliable if someone needs to make an appointment or arrive at work on time.
But the rideshare program means passengers like O'Brien can call a ride just like anybody else.
'This has allowed so much freedom,' O'Brien said. 'The goal of providing services like this is so that disabled people have the same or similar experiences as people without disabilities, and this has really come close to providing that.'
The Uber spending comes as the cost of operating ADA paratransit has ballooned due to increased demand; the program had a budget shortfall of $25.5 million last year. Looming over the paratransit budget is the impending $771 million transit fiscal cliff that Chicago-area transit agencies, including Pace, will plunge off next year if state legislators don't allocate them more funding.
Pace says it's cheaper to provide ADA paratransit rides via Uber than it is to provide traditional paratransit rides.
Use of the rideshare program has increased exponentially since the program's introduction. Last March, when the program launched, riders took about 5,000 rides through the city and the suburbs.
This March, there were about 168,000 subsidized rideshare trips, according to data presented at Pace's most recent board meeting.
At the direction of its oversight body, the Regional Transportation Authority, the agency is looking at ways to cut rideshare program costs, and is considering raising fares on the program from $2 to $3.25 to match fares for traditional paratransit.
The agency is also looking at limiting the number of subsidized rides users can take per month to 30. Currently, there is no limit, although riders pay the difference in fare for any rides that cost more than $30 total.
The program has drawn the particular ire of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents traditional paratransit drivers and argues that the program is a way for Pace to outsource union work to gig drivers, who don't get the protections and benefits that come with being an employee, let alone those that come with union membership.
'You're just keeping people living day to day,' said John Coli Jr., secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 727.
'How am I ever going to move up the social ladder?' he said. 'How am I ever going to achieve the American dream?'
Local 727 represents about 1,800 paratransit employees, mostly drivers, who work for Pace but are employed by subcontractors, Coli said. The Teamsters want Pace to use Uber only as a last resort, he said.
Coli said the union doesn't want paratransit users 'to have to sit at home trapped inside because they can't get a ride.' He said he understands why riders like the convenience of the Uber program.
'If the government was going to pay for my Uber to go to the Sox game on Wednesday, I'd be all about that, too,' Coli said.
Disability advocates bristle at what they describe as a tendency to categorize the program as a luxury.
'Disabled people have the right to freedom and to do fun things too, but I'm not using this to go shopping,' O'Brien said. 'This is essential for me.'
During the spring legislative session, which wrapped up at the end of May, the Teamsters hoped to win language that would have limited the use of rideshares for paratransit within transit reform legislation mostly focused on averting the fiscal cliff and restructuring the Chicago area's regional transit governing body.
But the parties failed to come to an agreement relating to paratransit. And though legislators introduced two different transit reform bills, lawmakers failed to pass either into law.
'My goal was always to try and find some middle point,' said state Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado, a Chicago Democrat who helped lead transit reform negotiations in the House. 'Unfortunately, that just wasn't something that we could get done by the end of session.'
With transit reform still an open issue, the Teamsters say they see an opportunity to renegotiate. And the union has threatened that its support for the transit reform and funding legislation — which lawmakers will need to pass if they want to avoid catastrophic 40% cuts to transit service next year, including cuts to paratransit service — is not to be taken for granted.
'We really are only inclined to want to support a bill that has teeth in limiting the rapid growth of Pace's use of rideshare to outsource its work,' said Pasquale Gianni, the Illinois Teamsters' director of government affairs.
Laura Saltzman, transportation policy analyst for Access Living, a disability rights organization, said the group was opposed to any language that would remove access to same day, on-demand paratransit service. Organized labor's demands would have made it functionally impossible for Pace to offer that service, Saltzman said. (The Teamsters dispute this.)
'My community is disabled people, so we need the service to be provided,' Saltzman said. 'I would welcome the service to be provided by labor.'
'I believe in people being paid fairly,' said O'Brien, who is a former employee of Access Living. 'But there has to be a way to accomplish that without cutting a needed service.'
When she picks up riders from their dialysis appointments, paratransit driver Enterna Williams turns the heat on or the fan off.
Dialysis can make people cold, and Williams wants to make sure the ride back is comfortable for her clients. Sometimes, when clients arrive home, there isn't anyone to help them in, so Williams does.
Williams, 36, drives for SCR Medical Transportation, one of Pace's traditional paratransit subcontractors. She's been on the job for a decade.
Pace contracts with four companies to provide traditional paratransit service: SCR Medical, MV Transportation, Cook DuPage Transportation and TransDev. Teamsters Local 727 represents drivers at all four companies, including Williams. Another share of paratransit drivers are represented by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1028. A small portion are Pace employees, according to the organization's executive director, Melinda Metzger.
After years as a driver, Williams helped organize a union with the Teamsters, she said, because of concerns over pay and drivers' at-will employment status. Drivers at SCR voted to unionize last year and ratified their first contract after a three-week strike.
Williams was making just over $20 an hour before drivers ratified their first contract with SCR last year, she said. Now she makes $24.50, a 20% increase in pay.
Like other drivers, Williams went through training to become a paratransit driver. She's subject to random drug tests. She doesn't think that Uber drivers have the same level of training and experience that she and her colleagues have.
'We deserve our clients,' she said.
But representatives for the Teamsters said that they are down about 200 jobs at SCR since the summer of 2024, which they attribute to the increased use of Uber for paratransit. SCR did not respond to requests for comment.
Metzger, Pace's executive director, said in an interview about the rideshare program that the agency was trying to make the most of limited resources.
'We operate in many different ways because we have a limited budget, and we're trying to do the best we can for both our riders and the taxpayers,' she said.
The rideshare program was born in part, Metzger said, because paratransit riders came back to the transit system faster than other riders did after the peak of the pandemic.
At the time, Pace didn't have enough paratransit drivers. Offering the rideshare program, she said, freed up space on traditional paratransit. The program was modeled after an existing program in which riders could call taxis as paratransit, which was available only within the city of Chicago.
'This is another choice for our riders,' Metzger said. 'We are very, very supportive of all of our unionized personnel also.'
Metzger noted that the costs of the rideshare program represent only a fraction of the agency's total paratransit costs, which were budgeted at nearly $250 million last year.
In a statement, Uber spokesperson Josh Gold said the program 'represents a significant step toward improving accessible transportation options for riders with disabilities through greater flexibility and on-demand convenience.'
State Sen. Ram Villivalam, a Chicago Democrat and one of the leaders of the transit reform effort in Springfield, said he was 'worried about the sustainability' of the rideshare program.
'We need to ensure that folks with disabilities have access to public transit to get to their job, their doctor, their school,' he told the Tribune after a transit reform rally last month. 'We also need to ensure that there is a sustainable path forward.'
'There were a lot of discussions related to how we maintain the level of service for the community,' Delgado said. Wherever discussions end up, Delgado said, it is important that 'the services that are available to people with disabilities … do not diminish in any way.'
But with the transit fiscal cliff fast approaching, paratransit is facing an existential threat.
Paratransit is offered, as is legally mandated, in parallel with regular transit service. That means that if Pace or the CTA cut bus service, for instance, paratransit service — including the rideshare program — will be cut too. Pace, along with the CTA and Metra, are in the midst of planning for the possibility of those catastrophic cuts next year.
Transit advocates have urged lawmakers to return to Springfield for a special session this summer to pass transit funding before pink slips go out in the fall.
So far, legislators have been mum on whether they will.