Making Rural Transit Work

[M II A II R II K]

Making Rural Transit Work


May 25, 2012

By Angie Schmitt

Read More: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/05/25...-transit-work/

PDF Report: http://reconnectingamerica.org/asset...ruralfinal.pdf

Transit in rural areas is tricky. Folks need to go farther, the passengers are more dispersed, and there’s less money to go around. But that doesn’t make it any less necessary. On the contrary, according to a new report from Reconnecting America, nearly 40 percent of the United States’ transit-dependent population — including senior citizens, the disabled and low-income individuals — lives in rural areas.

- There are 1,358 transit agencies working hard to serve these people. But they operate much differently than urban transit providers. Only 31 percent of rural transit operators use fixed-route service. Meanwhile, 86 percent provide demand-response service, which operates much more like a public taxi service than a big-city bus. Despite the challenges, investment in rural transit is improving, Reconnecting America reports, and communities that prioritize services are seeing economic results.

- Consider Allendale County, South Carolina. ”Do more with the same” should be this county’s motto. In 2003, Allendale County leaders came together to solve a vexing mobility problem: a finely dispersed population with a staggering 28 percent poverty rate. They discovered that the county was already running a number of fragmented transit services — those that served only the disabled, for example, or Medicaid recipients in need of healthcare services.

- Allendale’s Regional Transit Authority agreed to station a “mobility manager” in Allendale to implement this project. The mobility manager would match residents with available seats on existing vehicles operated by agencies in the region, depending on the destination of the resident. For passengers who needed to reach destinations that were not along a scheduled route, participating agencies would transport them on their demand-response vehicles, agreeing on a common per passenger mile rate for transporting the general public on these seats.

- Funding for the project came from sources such as South Carolina University Transportation Center, Sisters of Charity, Allendale County, Allendale Alive, a non-profit rural development organization, the South Carolina Department of Transportation, and the LSCOG [Lower Savannah Council of Governments]. LSCOG also coordinated FTA Section 5310 Elderly and Disabled program funds with providers including aging services, the disability board, the rural health center, and the Medicaid transit providers. Whereas previously all of those providers operated their services separately, often with excess capacity on their vehicles, under the new system those seats would be in use by residents who otherwise might have no means of accessing employment, educational opportunities, or medical services. As a result, Allendale County’s transit providers were able to serve far more people.

.....

Allendale County, South Carolina dramatically improved transit availability by better coordinating existing, fragmented service providers. Pictured above is its "Scooter" bus. Photo: Reconnecting America