- zTrip and Share a Fare have been collaborating to assist visually impaired individuals with transportation.
- zTrip's iCare cards, meant to simplify payments, have stopped working since July.
- Despite promises to fix the issue, the cards remain unusable, and refunds have not been issued.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Transportation service zTrip and nonprofit Share a Fare have been working together to help blind and visually impaired neighbors get to the places they need to go. But, after months of technical issues Share a Fare says zTrip is no longer holding up their end of the bargain and needs to return money to their participants.
"A lot of people couldn't imagine going without transportation for a day, and now some of our participants have been without transportation for months," said Lisa Johnson.
Lisa Johnson is Share a Fare's Executive Director, saya the nonprofit helps subsidize transportation costs for the blind and visually impaired.
Many of their clients in Omaha and Lincoln rely on ZTrip. The service uses iCare cards, which are intended to make the process easier. Users can load funds into them like a debit card and Share a Fare will match it up to 100 dollars a month. But, those cards are no longer working.
"There are many participants like me that use it to go to work or they use it to go to school or they use it to be involved in volunteer in their community. So this may be their only, only pathway to get to doctor's appointments or to do the things that like average citizens often take for granted," said Johnson.
Issues with the cards started back in July. Emails and text messages show zTrip had promised to fix the problem, but summer has turned to fall and Johnson says the cards still aren't fixed, and the riders say they still haven't seen a refund.
"zTrip has said to us in our last conversation with them that they are just going to discontinue the iCare card at this point. Our response back is, but what about all the money that you currently have on the cards?" said Johnson.
Share a Fare's records show almost 15 thousand dollars are on visually impaired Nebraskans iCare cards, but the funds aren't usable. KMTV reporter Hannah McIlree called zTrip to see when they planned on returning the money. No one answered and KMTV hasn't heard back yet.
Share a Fare says they're looking for other transportation companies to help their participants.
