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| Volume 17, Issue 3 | Spring 2004 |
Funding and Other Issues Bruce Fuchs, NDDOTIt's a case of "don't count your chickens before they hatch" regarding federal transportation funds. The U.S. Senate passed a transportation bill with significant increases in funding for the 5309 program for FY 2004. Many of you have asked when we'll receive that money. Unfortunately, the bill is stalled. They U.S. House of Representatives has not agreed to the bill or anything like it. That means no money yet for computers, vehicles or bus barns. That's where we'll be until the House and Senate concur on a bill. In North Dakota we're planning our training schedule for the coming year. Project managers, please let us know the areas where you need assistance and we'll try to plan our training programs accordingly. Also, let us know how many individuals will need PASS recertification in the coming year. We'll also need to know how many new drivers will need their initial PASS training. Keep your drivers certified to reduce the liability of your organization. Drivers will also be able to provide passengers with better service and react appropriately in emergency situations. Ultimately, having well-trained drivers reflects well on your service and your agency. Over the past 18 months we've noticed that some programs are not participating in our training. Why? Is the training not addressing your needs? You need to let me know why you are not participating. Training is absolutely essential to maintaining our transit systems. Transit Issues In South Dakota Bruce Lindholm, SDDOTIt has often been said that if an organization is not growing, it's dying. To keep transit healthy, we have encouraged the expansion of transit into new communities and encouraged providers to market service to increase ridership. We realized that expanding transit and increasing ridership was going to cost money and we have been very successful at increasing the level of funding available to providers. Statewide, ridership has increased by 25 percent in our non-urban public and human services systems. At the same time, state and federal funding has increased by 50 percent from $1.8 million FY 2001 to $2.7 million in FY 2004. Several issues relate to funding and ridership. The first relates to performance - if more monies are put into transit systems to increase transit availability, we would certainly hope to see that increase in ridership, otherwise it becomes difficult to justify additional funding. I am fairly comfortable with the increases in ridership in South Dakota as a whole, although some systems have not increased ridership in spite of greatly increased funding. I believe ridership has not risen as fast as funding because of increased costs (fuel and insurance) and latent funding demands (salaries and equipment needs). Marketing transit is not only done at a provider level. When I work to obtain additional funding from established sources or obtain new funding, I am marketing transit. I explain the benefits. I explain the costs. And I explain why we need more money and what we expect to get from the increased expenditure. Public officials fund programs that they think are important. Expanding transit so that it is more a daily, normal part of people's lives makes it more visible and more important to public officials. The more that I can show what great things are happening in transit - the easier it is to make my case that transit is important and worth funding. We need everyones help to get transit funding where it needs to be. As transit providers, the best thing you can do is market your service and increase your ridership. If your system has declining ridership, I encourage you to closely examine of your system to find out why. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this - the better job you do, the more likely it will be that you will have an opportunity to continue doing it. House Passes Highway BillOn a 357-65 vote the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $275 billion highway and transit bill on April 2. The bill is now in conference committee as members try to reconcile the bill with a $318 billion packaged passed by the U.S. Senate in February. Both versions of the bill represent an increase from the $218 billion spent for the 1998-2003 program. The White House has threatened to veto any bill that costs more than the $256 billion it recommends.
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