Sponsors
The bill would substantially expand and modernize same‑day paratransit—improving mobility, accessibility, and efficiency for people with disabilities and seniors—while requiring significant federal funding and imposing implementation, compliance, and equity challenges for smaller providers and local agencies.
People with disabilities and seniors will gain substantially improved same‑day paratransit access and lower fares, increasing mobility for work, health care, and community life.
Local and state transit agencies (including rural systems) will face a much lower net operating burden because higher federal matching (up to ~70–80%) makes operating expanded same‑day paratransit financially feasible.
Transit systems and riders will benefit from better efficiency and planning as open APIs, data ownership, and anonymized data-sharing enable dynamic matching, unified booking, and more efficient use of paratransit capacity (potentially lowering per-trip costs).
Taxpayers and the federal budget will face higher spending due to increased federal operating shares and possible formula funding to expand same‑day paratransit.
Local transit agencies will incur substantial short‑term procurement, implementation, and operational costs to adopt dynamic matching, accessibility, cybersecurity, and new vendor contracts.
Smaller and rural providers (and providers that rely on contracted or informal drivers) risk being disadvantaged or left with lower funding shares if they cannot meet Administrator standards or new software/vendor requirements.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Increases federal operating-share incentives for same-day paratransit (up to 80%) and requires FTA minimum standards for paratransit software, barring noncompliant systems from federal-funded procurements after phase-in.
Introduced March 26, 2026 by Lateefah Simon · Last progress March 26, 2026
Creates incentives and technology standards to expand same-day paratransit. The bill raises the federal share for operating grants for eligible same-day paratransit projects (up to 70%, or up to 80% when the service uses vehicles operated by the recipient’s own employees) across the §5310, §5307, and §5311 grant programs. It also directs the Federal Transit Administration to issue minimum standards for paratransit software and technology (accessibility, cybersecurity, APIs, data ownership, real-time routing, US-based cloud storage, etc.) and prohibits use of certain federal transit funds for third-party paratransit software that fails to meet those standards after transition periods. Transit agencies can receive higher federal cost-sharing for same-day paratransit if they meet the FTA’s technology and service standards; software vendors must meet those standards or lose eligibility for federal-funded procurements. The FTA must publish standards within one year, with funding prohibitions phased in (1 year for urban/§5310 funds, 2 years for rural/§5311 funds after standards are finalized).