|
more articles like this
Easy Lift Transportation
updated: Jan 08, 2011, 8:30 AM
In Santa Barbara County, there are more than 65,000 individuals with some form
of disability and many of these individuals rely on Easy Lift for their
transportation needs. With the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA) twenty years ago, transportation services for disabled individuals were
mandated under federal law. In south Santa Barbara County, Easy Lift
Transportation is the only ADA transportation serving agent.
A large percentage of Easy Lift's passengers' destination requests are to
medical appointments but there are also many requests to local nonprofits that
provide services to individuals with limited mobility. These organizations rely
on one, or many, of Easy Lift's services to transport their clients to their
designated activities or programs. A few of the most used services are:
- Dial-A-Ride: This is also commonly known as curbside-to-curbside
transportation. To be eligible, clients must be physically or cognitively unable
to ride MTD. Passengers pay only $3.50 for each one-way ride.
- Loaner Vehicle Program: Under this program, the requesting organization
provides Easy Lift with their own candidate that we train to become an Easy Lift
volunteer driver. Once training is completed, this individual may borrow our
vans to transport the agency's own clients. We provide the training, insurance
and van free of charge.
- Mobility Training Service: Our mobility trainer will work one-on-one with
individuals to teach them such skills as how to read and use the MTD bus
schedule, where to catch the MTD bus they need, and so on.
- Children's Accessible Transportation (C.A.T.): Since 2008, our C.A.T. program
has provided more than 8,000 rides to the less advantaged children of our
community through collaboration with 17 youth agencies. C.A.T. provides
transportation to many youth and teen programs that do not have transportation
in their budgets. C.A.T. is free of charge to its recipients and is arranged
through collaborative efforts with the partnering youth agencies.
The mission for Easy Lift Transportation is to serve the community and to offer
cooperation, creativity, and leadership. The organization is dedicated to
supporting the independence of individuals with special needs by providing safe
transportation and related services. Easy Lift has provided transportation for
people with limited mobility for over 30 years in south Santa Barbara County.
With 22 wheelchair-accessible vans in its fleet, Easy Lift Transportation has
developed a comprehensive backbone to support its operations. It is staffed with
a team of fully certified drivers and an experienced operations department and
schedules nearly 80,000 rides per year to keep up with Santa Barbara's expanding
aging community. For more information, visit www.easylift.org or call 805-681-
1181. Please check out Easy Lift's video at: link.
1 comment on this article. Read/Add
# # # #
|
