Local transportation provider
driving toward self-sufficiency
 |
| (REBECCA BRATU/Rockbridge Report) |
Every Tuesday and Friday, a shuttle van takes people from Lexington to the Maury River Senior Center in Buena Vista. But with gasoline costs soaring, the fees may have to rise from 50 cents to 75 cents.
“We don’t have a reliable business model,” said Tim Root, executive director of the nonprofit agency that runs the shuttle, the Rockbridge Area Transportation System (RATS). “Every cent we make goes back into the business.”
The senior center in Buena Vista is worried, too. Director Jeri Schaff said the partnership with RATS is invaluable.
“It gives these folks from Lexington an opportunity to come to the center and have a good time,” she said. “They really like it here.” Schaff said six senior citizens come to the center regularly from Lexington.
But the successful partnership between RATS and the center is hanging by a thread. Normally RATS would charge $6 for a ride from Lexington to Buena Vista, but it charges $4 for those going to the senior center. The center has agreed to subsidize these fares, so people are charged only 50 cents a trip.
But Schaff said the center is facing federal and state-level budget cuts and in 12 months will have to increase the fares to 75 cents a trip. Of the six regular center visitors from Lexington, only one could afford to pay that sum, Schaff said.
Salvation, albeit a temporary one, came with a recent $15,000 grant from the Virginia Department for the Aging. Root said $3,600 of that will be used to keep the senior center shuttle running with the current fares in place.
“It’s important to keep these fares low,” he said. The rest of the money will keep the service’s door-to-door service and its shopping shuttle running.
But Root said he would still have to change the fare guide by the end of the year.
"'To be responsible about our own financing we have to be sure we’re not just giving away transportation we shouldn’t be,” Root said.
With his board of directors he is working on developing a system to charge fares according to people’s ability to pay them.
“I don’t think it happens too much now, but we shouldn’t transport someone at such low cost if they could pay more,” he said.
Rockbridge County has no form of public transportation. RATS is a private corporation that provides the county with cheap and specialized transportation for people with disabilities, the elderly, or those who have no other means to get around.
RATS is a demand/response service that picks up passengers at their residence, delivers them to their destination, and then takes them back home. Their 13 vehicles, including seven vans that can accommodate people in wheelchairs, provide about 1,000 trips every month, Root said. About 90 percent of those rides are for medical appointments.
“But we’re not here just for critical stuff,” Root said. “It’s so that everyone can be an active part of the community.”
Root oversees the countywide operation from a tiny two-room office on McDowell Street in Lexington, jam-packed with files, ceiling-scraping shelving units, computers and folding wheelchairs.
“We take care of folks,” he said. “We don’t just pick them up and dump them somewhere.”
Driver Brenda Harper said her job at RATS has been a real eye-opener.
“[The job] made all the stuff we worry about every day seem trivial,” she said.
The pay may not be great, but Harper is happy she can help people who have no means to get around.
“We all know when we get hired that we’ll never get rich working for RATS, so you’d better love what you’re doing,” Harper said.
Root also writes grant proposals for equipment or money and organizes fundraisers or appeals to the community for help. But the big money for public transit is from the state and federal governments.
RATS may not apply for state or federal funding directly, Root said. A local government has to apply on the corporation’s behalf. RATS is exploring such possibilities with Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County.
So RATS continues to pinch pennies as it strives to become self-sufficient.
“I think [RATS] could be a forerunner to some regular form of public transportation,” Root said. “But we could promote ourselves out of business.”
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