“The elderly and the mentally challenged they don’t have a voice,” said Melissa Keller.
Keller is disabled, because of that she uses the public transportation in Beeville to get herself around.
For the past 4 years she says R.E.A.L transit has been reliable.She has a standing schedule where her reservation is the same each week, but she says now she’s being picked up late more frequently.
“There’s no kind of structure when it comes to scheduling people or picking up people,” said Keller.
Keller is a student at Coastal Bend College and just two weeks ago she almost missed a final exam due to a late pick up.
“I got to Coastal Bend College and they’re supposed to pick me up at 9 o’ clock but they didn’t get here until 9:30 AM so I went in to the classroom late and they were doing final exams,” said Keller.
Fortunate for her she says the professor still let her take her exam, but she says it’s becoming too common of an occurrence for a service that she’s paying for.
“They overbook people and they don’t give a courtesy call and I’m running late you,” said Keller. “You just have to take it, they’re late this has also happened with doctors’ appointments and I’m glad that the doctor is able to see me afterwards even though I’m late.
But according to the director of R.E.A.L transit Martin Ornelas, a pick-up is considered to be “on-time” if it happens 15 minutes before or 15 minutes after its scheduled.
And even if a bus is running late it is not common practice to place courtesy calls to let someone know their ride will be late.
Ornelas did say real transit runs anywhere between 750 to 900 trips per day, and sometimes rides are delayed due to vehicle inspection, weather, or other riders not being on time for their scheduled pick-ups.
R.E.A.L Transit also told Action 10 News they are working on a new system that would send text notifications to people when picks are not going to be on time.
