What Is the Dial-A-Ride Service?
Many towns in the Farmington Valley district have a Dial-A-Ride service which operates out of town senior centers or social service departments.
This service provides free or low-cost door to door transportation for residents aged 60 and older and disabled adults to medical appointments, shopping trips, and social activities, ensuring they reach their destinations safely and on time.
Older adults can arrange transportation via telephone to their local Dial-A-Ride booking line. Riders are required to schedule their rides a few days in advance, allowing for proper planning and coordination.
One of the key features of the program is its shared rides, which not only help reduce costs but also promote community engagement.
Additionally, Dial-A-Ride ensures that older adults have a seamless and stress-free travel experience. The mini buses or single vehicles are all well-maintained, comfortable, air-conditioned and heated, fitted with seatbelts, and have room for wheelchairs or walkers. They also have adequate room for storing shopping bags in the rear of the vehicles. The mini buses have an automatic chair-lift for those who cannot use stairs.
By making use of this program, older adults can access the transportation they need to run errands, attend appointments, or simply enjoy outings in their community, all without any financial burden or major physical inconvenience.
To learn more about Dial-A-Ride services in your area, either contact your local Senior/ Community Center, Municipal Social Services Departments, or Google:
- Dial-A-Ride services in Farmington Valley, CT
- How does Dial-A-Ride work in CT?
One Community Member’s Story: The Best Antidote to Isolation
For many older adults, moving later in life from a family home to smaller accommodations, or moving closer to family, can mean relocating to another suburb, another state, or, in my case, another country. Such moves bring big changes: the loss of familiar surroundings, the loss of an established social network, and the challenge of building new connections in an unfamiliar community.
The East Granby Senior Center and the Dial-A-Ride program helped make my transition into a new community a positive one.
Coming from Australia in my 80s, I left an urban environment and arrived in a beautiful but unfamiliar semi-rural town. I had been used to driving on the “other” side of the road, and I was now living in a community with no public transportation. Without support, this could easily have led to periods of isolation. Thanks to my proactive family, I was quickly introduced to the local Senior Center and to the East Granby Dial-A-Ride service.
This service has allowed me to get out into the community, shop independently, and connect with important services, including the medical center, dentist, physiotherapist, hairdresser, and other necessary support. Most of all, it brought me into contact with other members of the community and helped me begin to feel a sense of belonging once more.
For most seniors in my age group, being able to maintain independence while also having the support and comfort of family nearby is a great blessing. With the encouragement of my family, and with the means to navigate my own way through this process, the transition has been made so much easier by having access to transportation when needed. It is also a great motivator to get out and engage with a community that is happy to welcome a newcomer.
That is what has made all the difference.
My sincere thanks go to the team who run the East Granby Dial-A-Ride service. The drivers are fully accredited and thoroughly professional, helpful, friendly, and supportive. They make each trip feel more like an enjoyable family outing than a simple journey from A to B.
Thanks to services like these, the issue of isolation for seniors is greatly diminished, and the service itself is so easy to use.