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THE DEMAND-RESPONSE HALF OF THE SYSTEM
What it is: Alongside the fixed routes the corporation runs Citilink Access, the complementary paratransit service the Americans with Disabilities Act requires of fixed-route operators: curb-to-curb, reservation-based rides for people whose disabilities prevent them using the fixed-route buses, within a corridor three-quarters of a mile of a fixed route. Its documented scale in 2012: 47,391 one-way trips over 251,373 miles, against the fixed routes' two million trips. The Access fare stood at $2.50 a one-way trip in the 2012 county plan and was still $2.50 in 2024. Access is the part of the system budget fights reach first and hardest: in the 2008 crisis the corporation's cut proposals included restricting Access to the three-quarter-mile corridor and laying off the entire part-time Access staff.
Access Plus and the Via contract: On 1 July 2025 the service was formally split in two: Access, the ADA-minimum service inside the three-quarter-mile corridor, at a $3.00 fare, and Access Plus, covering trips beginning or ending outside the corridor but within the Fort Wayne city limits, at $4.50. The demand kept growing through the change — Access ridership grew 13.3 percent in 2024 over 2023, averaging 261 passenger trips on weekdays. In 2025 the corporation put the operation itself out to contract, and on 15 December 2025 Via Transportation began operating all Access and Access Plus services under the Citilink name — the vehicles, fares, eligibility and booking app unchanged, with many drivers transferring to the contractor.
Sources: NIRCC, Bus Fort Wayne plan (the 2012 Access trips, miles and fare); Wheelchair Travel's Fort Wayne guide, 2024 (the $2.50 fare; the city-limits service area); Fort Wayne PTC Request for Proposal 2025-1 (the Access/Access Plus structure and fares; the 2024 ridership growth and weekday average); Via Transportation, 10 December 2025 (the operating contract from 15 December 2025); the News-Sentinel, 2008, via AroundFortWayne (the proposed Access restrictions).