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Deborah Braiman uses Honolulu’s TheHandi-Van service to get her where she needs to go — except when it doesn’t.
Two weeks ago Braiman, who is blind, waited with three others outside Guide Dogs of Hawaii on King Street for TheHandi-Van vehicles to pick them up.
One was scheduled to arrive at 3 p.m., another a half-hour later. Both times came and went; the vans didn’t. The paratransit service didn’t call. Braiman and her three fellow riders waited.
“I have no sight whatsoever. Everything is black,” Braiman said. “To stand outside on King Street, you don’t know who’s walking by. And I have to wait outside on the street for the van.”
“We’re sitting out there like sitting ducks to get mugged, raped and robbed because they don’t have a van,” she said. “And they don’t even tell us?”
More than an hour later, the vans turned up.
The delay wasn’t new for Braiman, who has experienced over recent months the City and County of Honolulu’s TheHandi-Van service grow less and less responsive to the needs of people who are blind and disabled, who depend on the vehicles for mobility and, most of all, autonomy.
The vans take 5,000 users on almost 78,000 rides each month, according to DTS data. The service has 207 paratransit vehicles in various conditions, Transportation Director Roger Morton said in an interview. About 84 of them are out of commission, DTS spokesperson
Travis Ota said. To be “sustainable” the service would need to purchase 40 vans every year because they last five to six years, Morton said.
The service’s unreliability can have harsh consequences for those who need it, according to Donald Sakamoto,
a longtime advocate for
TheHandi-Van riders.
“Late pick-ups and drop-offs for: Chemo, dialysis, and other treatments; crucial medical appointments; and most importantly employment, is unacceptable and inexcusable!” Sakamoto wrote in testimony to the City Council on Nov. 15.
Braiman attributes the poor service to the shortage of vehicles.
In the past few weeks, she has been dropped at the wrong Christian institution — Sacred Heart Church, not Sacred Hearts Academy — had a ride canceled, and was dropped off at Magic Island and told to wait by a bench that wasn’t the usual spot.
“I said, ‘Look, I’m blind. I don’t know where I’m going,’” Braiman recalled telling the driver. “She said, ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’ And she left me.”
“They’re not answering the call. They’re not showing up. They’re not telling people they’re going to be late. They’re booking vans that aren’t available,” she said.
In light of these recent hang-ups, the city’s Department of Transportation Services asked TheHandi-Van riders to fill out a survey. “The feedback provided by riders will help DTS continue to improve the quality of TheHandi-Van service,” the DTS said in a news release.
(The survey can be accessed online at eva.thebus.org. Feedback also can be given at 808-768-8300. Riders also can request a survey in English, Chuukese, Ilokano, Japanese, Chinese or Tagalog be mailed to them, and they can be submitted to handivan@honolulu.gov, faxed to 808-768-1986 or mailed to Paratransit Service and Operations Branch, Department of Transportation Services, City and County of Honolulu, Pacific Park Plaza, 711 Kapiolani Blvd., Suite 1600, Honolulu, HI 96813.)
During the pandemic,
the program’s ridership dropped, and the number of on-time or early pickups rose 10%, to 98.1%, Morton, the DTS director, told the City Council on Nov. 15. But riders have been coming back this year, to about 80% of the pre-pandemic amount, he said. (Only 0.36% of vans arrived more than 30 minutes after the scheduled time, his presentation said.)
The call center has struggled to staff the phones, making it harder for people to book rides.
In 2021 almost all callers looking to make a reservation would be answered within five minutes. This year that number shrank to 36% from 98% in September. It rose to 68.8% in October.
The long wait discouraged riders. Almost 3% of people abandoned their calls in September 2021, but this past September, 17% did.
“Frankly, our record is
unacceptable,” Morton told the Council. “It just takes too long to get through.” The call center suffers from “excessive absenteeism” among staff, he said.
Meanwhile, the rate of vehicles available for rides has been decreasing since April. The service needs 80% of its vans available to meet peak demand in the afternoon, Morton said. The rate went below that figure in August and descended to less than 75% in October, DTS data shows.
“When we see the availability going down below 80, that’s a warning sign to me that something has to be done,” Morton told the Council. “Supply chain issues” are delaying necessary parts, he said. And the local van dealer, Soderholm Bus
&Mobility, “will not honor the low-bid price,” he said, alluding to the shop’s need to adjust to rising costs.
Gabi Soderholm, assistant operations manager at Soderholm Bus &Mobility, said
earlier this month that the family business originally proposed a $9.7 million contract for 65 vehicles at $149,377 apiece. Now the company is asking for a 34.72% increase to $201,234 per vehicle — a $13 million contract if the count remains, she said.
Soderholm said that his company’s bank’s interest rate has doubled in the past year, and Ford has “arbitrarily increased” the price of the E450 chassis that Soderholm Bus &Mobility uses — cab, rails, axles and wheels — by more than $10,000, possibly because of the global semiconductor shortage. A company owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Forest River, builds the part of the van where passengers sit.
Before the pandemic, delivering a vehicle took a half-year, but now it can take more than a year and a half, Soderholm said. “So you have to predict what your pricing is going to be in
1-1/2 to two years,” she said.
Reached by phone, Morton said, “While the city and Soderholm are negotiating, it would not be helpful to have those negotiations within the public discussion.”
“The big picture is the small-van market has been consolidated from eight manufacturers to one, and the number of vehicle chassis the Ford Motor Co. has put out this year is 38% less than they did last year,” Morton said. “That is the root of the problem.”
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