Established six months ago as an alternative form of public transportation for the disabled and senior citizens in Hermosa Beach, the city’s new taxi voucher program has become increasingly popular among eligible residents, according to city officials.

The Hermosa Beach Police Department, under the direction of Police Chief Mike Lavin sponsored a citywide publicity campaign to promote the program beginning last February. This week, Lavin said both residents and taxicab drivers have voiced their opinions on the pilot program, suggesting the city modify routes based on a seven-mile radius method rather than only permitting the drivers to work off a detailed list of specific destination points that they may use in their routes.

“People really like the program,” said Lavin. “The program is the same as the WAVE with certain drop-off points which are on a list, but people would like us to alter this part of the program. We have residents who have doctors in Torrance or Manhattan Beach, and the voucher program does not travel to these cities. So, if we used a radius system, then the program would take in all of those areas.”

This September, City Manager Stephen Burrell and Lavin will evaluate the program’s activity, and submit their recommendations and findings to the Hermosa Beach City Council, which hopes to establish the program permanently as a more personalized and efficient mode of transportation in town.

The program allows residents to purchase up to 20 vouchers at the city’s Finance Department each month. The voucher price is $1 and each voucher provides one-way service. The taxi service allows up to three additional passengers to travel together on one voucher. Eligible residents must be older than the age of 62 or disabled.

The city allocated funds from its Proposition “A” account for the program. Employees in the city’s Finance Department have sold 990 vouchers since the end of February, when the city implemented the program.

The City Council last October agreed to contract with South Bay Yellow Cab to provide residents with the voucher program in conjunction with the city’s WAVE bus program, established in 1987.

The WAVE is a large bus that transports all residents to certain places in the cities of Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Torrance and several other areas in the South Bay. The voucher program could lower the existing costs of the WAVE, which currently provide service to about 800 people each month.

Each one-way trip for a resident using the WAVE is approximately $22 compared to the $14 spent on a one-way taxi voucher. In February, the city predicted that if 20 percent of the current 800 WAVE patrons use the taxi service each month, the annual cost to the city would be between $21,000 and $25,000 per year.

Lavin said it is still hard to predict whether the program will be as widely accepted as the WAVE due to its limited service to only certain residents.

“I think the program will stay,” said Lavin. “This program is still in its infancy stage, but it has been well-received and if we modify it, it will be even better. It has become a really neat program.”