Last month, eighty-six-year-old Ellen Brown waited in her wheelchair inside Riverdale-on-Hudson Funeral Home, the June heat pushing 100 degrees. She had booked an Access-A-Ride to pick her up from her daughter’s wake more than a day in advance.
It never showed.
Brown spent hours in limbo, stuck in a maze of phone calls with customer service before another vehicle was dispatched. Unfortunately, Brown’s experience isn’t unique. Across the greater Riverdale area, older adults face increasingly unreliable transportation services, making it difficult to reach medical appointments, shop for essentials or stay socially connected…