The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 54

54 THE BOSTON GLOBE THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1988 MBTA to recommend changes in service for handicapped Bv Jerry Ackerman Globe Staff Amid continuing complaints by' people with disabilities about vans operated by The Ride, MBTA officials yesterday said a change is in store for the door-to-door transportation service for wheelchair users and others with physical problems. MBTA General Manager James F. O'Leary told a group represent ing handicapped people at the agency's board meeting yesterday that he believed that Transportation Management Services Inc. "has not lived up to its obligations" since taking over management of The Ride program last July. Operating throughout Boston and its immediate suburbs, The Ride provides about 5,000 rides monthly by van or taxi to persons with physical disablities.

Riders pay 75 cents. Recalling the disruption that occurred for users when the MBTA shifted its contract for The Ride to TMSI in July, O'Leary said the MBTA didn't want to act abruptly, particularly during a time when the weather makes travel more difficult for those with handicaps. But, he said, "I would concur with the advocates that we need a change and I am prepared to increases. O'Leary said he will make a recommendation to the board in February, adding that the MBTA Advisory Board's directive to recover one-third of operating costs through fares "virtually mandates a rate increase." The board also approved more than $5.5 million in contracts, including $1 million to upgrade a freight track in Maiden to carry commuter trains from Haverhill while a tunnel is rebuilt to make room for new locomotives. The MBTA also agreed to provide three bus trips each morning and night between the Pine Street Inn and the Braintree Armory for homeless persons to be sheltered in Braintree.

The state Department of Human Services will pay $155,000 for the service. Three no-bid contracts totaling $2.1 million for spare parts for the coming year for rapid transit and light-rail cars and commuter locomotives also were approved. The vendors. General Electric Westinghouse Air Brake and AEG Westinghouse Transportation Systems were described as being the sole source for the parts. rfl hi 1 ,1 ii 'i mmmmtimmHaimM-S y1 Globe photoGeorge Rlzer MBTA general manager James O'Leary announces the opening of the new JFKUMass station three months ahead of schedule.

New JFKUMass station opens Passengers on inbound MBTA Red Line trains from Braintree yesterday found a new stop available to them as the transit agency put its new, $14 million JFK-UMass station at Columbia Road in Dorchester into service three months ahead of schedule. For the first time since the Red Line extension to the South Shore opened in 1971, passengers using the Braintree branch can disembark at the two-level brick-and-glass station complex serving the University of Massachusetts at Boston, the Kennedy Library and the Bayside Expo Center. Braintree-branch passengers previously had to change trains at Andrew Station to reach the JFK-UMass stop, a transfer that could add 10 to 15 minutes to a trip. Dorchester political leaders, including Reps. James T.

Brett and Richard J. Rouse, praised the de-' sign and landscaping around the. station at a brief ceremony that took place with work still going on around them. "It is a welcome addition to the neighborhood," Brett said. The station's completion moves the main entrance to Mor-, rissey Boulevard.

It includes sheltered bus stop and wheelchair access. A previous entrance on Co-" lumbia Road remains open. Elevators and stairways connect a broad, sheltered lobby area with separate platforms for trains of the Red Line's Ashmont branch and its Braintree branch, and an overhead sign indicates with lights when inbound trains are approaching so passengers will know which platform they should use. make a recommendation to the board at the next meeting." "We believed that this was going to improve the situation," MBTA Board chairman Frederick P. Salvucci said of last summer's choice to hire TMSI to replace a Cambridge firm, THEM Inc.

"It clearly has not turned out to be an improvement," he said. The officials' comments came after the group, led by Ralph Steele of Brookline and Ben Haynes of Brighton, complained that safety problems, including drivers who seem untrained in helping the handicapped, continue in vehicles working for The Ride. Steele, who uses a wheelchair, heads the 80-member Brookline Group for the Handicapped. He told the MBTA board that he has seen vans operating without seat belts and heard renewed reports of persons in wheelchairs being dropped abruptly to the ground, or rolling off lift platforms because drivers were not well trained. He said charged that TMSI may pay too little to recruit able help, citing recent advertisments for drivers for jobs paying $6.50 an hour, while pizza shop jobs offer $9.

"Maybe I am being a little egotistical but I believe I am worth more than a pizza," Steele said. Haynes, who is blind, and a member of the MBTA Special Needs Advisory Committee, said reports of accidents involving vans continue, rising to 25 in October and again in November after a decline in August and September. Seeking to answer earlier complaints that reached a peak after a Newton woman died in a crash involving a Ride taxi, the MBTA two weeks ago replaced TMSI's services in South Boston, Dorchester and Mattapan with vans operated by the Kit Clark Senior House, a nonprofit neighborhood organization. Haynes urged the MBTA to further "decentralize" The Ride's services and dismiss TMSI, which holds a master contract and subcontracts its work to private van operators. Also yesterday, the MBTA board heard a summary account from O'Leary of hearings conducted on proposals to raise bus fares 10 cents, subway fares 15 cents and commuter rail fares 50 cents by next summer to meet budget ENGLISH WINE TABLE Available with burgundy or green table top.

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