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The Agency Council on Coordinated Transportation (ACCT) is a partnership of members from the legislature, state agencies, transportation providers and consumer advocates whose mission is to direct and promote activities that efficiently use all available state and community resources for special needs transportation across the state. The legislature created ACCT in 1998 to facilitate coordination and eliminate cross-jurisdictional and government program barriers to transportation. The ACCT Council concentrates on three critical areas: Identify and Address Barriers, Focus on Results, and Increase Advocacy.
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IDENTIFY AND ADDRESS BARRIERS
ACCT Website's New Content
In addition to many new reports published by ACCT, there is a new section called ACCT Brochures that contains briefs that are easy to understand and covers many topics related to coordinated transportation.
Finally, ACCT has added pages that contain all of the local coordinated plans and a watch list for legislation that will impact coordinated transportation.
INCREASE ADVOCACY
Wide-ranging Support for ACCT
On February 8th the House Transportation committee convened and heard testimony on House Bill 1694. This bill would reauthorize ACCT for another 10 years and require the council to report to the legislature on activities to identify and address barriers, focus on results, and increase advocacy.
At the hearing Paula Hammond, Chief of Staff at the Washington State Department of Transportation, Mike Harbour representing Washington Transit Association, and Lynn Moody of Hopelink representing the Medicaid brokers gave the House Transportation committee information about the state of coordination in Washington and supported the committee's interest in renewing ACCT and improving coordination and special needs transportation in Washington.
Several advocates came forward to ask the committee to improve coordination and service statewide including Emily Rogers of ARC of Washington and Margaret Casey ACCT member and a planner for City of Seattle, Aging and Disability Services. There were no persons testifying against the bill. At the hearing there were also customers of special needs transportation, the Self-Advocates of Washington are prioritizing ACCT reauthorization this year.
On February 26th a substitute bill was adopted and passed by the Transportation Committee.
FOCUS ON RESULTS
The Washington State Summary of Community and Brokered Transportation
ACCT created this report to develop guidelines for setting performance measures and for evaluating performance of coordinated special needs transportation. The report focuses on the performance of 33 community transportation providers that received grants through the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) in the 2003-2005 biennium and the eight brokers of transportation for Washington's Medicaid clients.
The report also presents uniform data to facilitate greater understanding of the work of these diverse providers and assist in the evaluation of coordinated transportation efforts. The report is available on the ACCT website. ACCT's 2007 Report to the Legislature includes a summarized version of the report and can be found at the same website.
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