Bend has a fixed-route bus system. A concern is that people in other communities in Central Oregon may be abusing Dial-A-Ride. (Richard Coe/The Bulletin)

When a service is offered for free, people can abuse it. It may be happening with the Dial-A-Ride service in Central Oregon.

In Bend, Dial-A-Ride is a free transportation service from origin to destination for people with a disability and low-income seniors. It’s like a taxi without any fee. People who use the service must qualify. In Redmond, everyone qualifies.

Bob Townsend, transit director for Cascades East Transit, says it is being abused.

“The free, especially on the Dial-A-Ride, in Bend and Redmond, for example, is just being abused terribly, because it is just free,” he told the Bend City Council. “We have people taking 45 trips a month, where they are going out to eat breakfast, coming home, going out to eat lunch, coming home, going to a doctor’s appointment. And as long as they qualify, we don’t control it.”

“In Redmond, everyone qualifies — you, me, it doesn’t matter,” he continued later. “There’s no pre-qualifier since we don’t have the expanded system. Basically, in the morning, we are taking kids to elementary school and things like that.”

This alleged abuse of the system would be a good argument for switching to a fee for using Dial-A-Ride and the bus system. That is being considered and may go into effect in the next several months. If people have to pay $4 a trip for using Dial-A-Ride, as is proposed, they may limit their own use of the system.

But that raises a question, what is abuse?

If someone lives in Redmond, where there is no fixed-route bus system in place, and calls for service by Dial-A-Ride, when is the trip use and when is it abuse? Is it abuse to go to breakfast and come home, go to lunch and then come home and then to go to a doctor’s appointment? Is it abuse to use the system to take kids to school, for whatever reason? Is it abuse to use it for 45 trips a month? How many trips a month do you drive your car?

What Townsend describes sounds suspicious. Is it actual abuse, though, when the community fails to provide transit?

The proposed fee of $4 a one-way trip for Dial-A-Ride doesn’t sound terrible for a service that likely costs more than that to provide. As good a deal as it is, not everybody can easily afford a round-trip, even if there are additional discounts.