Wheels riders share experiences, issues with LexTran paratransit service

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - For as long as she’s lived in Lexington, Avery Baggett has been traveling a road to rehabilitation.

“I have pretty good, what we call travel vision,” said Baggett. “I can see cars and trees and the like, but my eyes are not stable enough to read any size print.”

Baggett suffered a traumatic brain injury which left her suddenly blind in adulthood. Since then, she’s spent most of her journey to recovery in Lexington and found that getting around is not so easy for others like her in the city.

“Wheels was my first paratransit option and I quickly disavowed them,” Baggett said.

She would pre-schedule rides, and yet she found herself lost in the shuffle - left waiting for hours at a time. Her story is not an isolated incident.

“Transportation, of course, is one of the biggest challenges that people face with blindness,” said Susan Ament with the Bluegrass Council of the Blind (BCB).

BCB has spent a half century supporting the city’s visually impaired and their clients use Wheels on a daily basis.

Since LexTran’s service provider switched from the Red Cross to RATP Dev in October 2022, the Lexington Herald Leader found their on-time performance goals haven’t been hit once.

“Meeting the vehicle demands and staff demands during those high times can be difficult, and something like that impacts on-time performance,” said Emily Elliott, who serves as the director of planning and community development for LexTran.

To make matters worse, BCB says a new policy limits the amount of groceries they can carry in the vehicle.

“It is very frustrating when you’re trying to help people, and then you’re thinking, ‘Well, is that person going to even be able to eat?’’ Ament said. BCB offers a food distribution service to their clients, so they feel the impact of this acutely.

LexTran says Wheels serves as many as 15,000 people a month, with staffing proving to be a key issue.

“We’re also working with them to understand maybe why someone is not showing up for their trip? what’s going wrong?” Elliott said, in an effort to improve communications between drivers and riders.

As the city weighs alleviating options like micro transit, people who are waiting on rides just hope there is more accessibility in their future.

“Options that one person uses may not be the thing that works for the next person, but to have a variety of options would definitely improve things,” said Ament.

LexTran says they’re interested in discussing new options like micro transit and any others that could benefit the community. But they have concerns over securing long-term funding that could reasonably support such a project.