[Senate Hearing 117-367]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-367
RURAL TRANSIT: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR CONNECTING COMMUNITIES
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
HOUSING, TRANSPORTATION, AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
of the
COMMITTEE ON
BANKING,HOUSING,AND URBAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
EXAMINING THE EFFECT OF RURAL TRANSIT AND ISSUES THAT SHAPE THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE LIVING IN RURAL AMERICA
__________
JUNE 8, 2021
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs
GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available at: https: //www.govinfo.gov /
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-618 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman
JACK REED, Rhode Island PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
JON TESTER, Montana MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
JON OSSOFF, Georgia JERRY MORAN, Kansas
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
STEVE DAINES, Montana
Laura Swanson, Staff Director
Brad Grantz, Republican Staff Director
Cameron Ricker, Chief Clerk
Shelvin Simmons, IT Director
Charles J. Moffat, Hearing Clerk
______
Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development
TINA SMITH, Minnesota, Chair
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota, Ranking Republican Member
JACK REED, Rhode Island RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
JON TESTER, Montana BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia STEVE DAINES, Montana
Tim Everett, Subcommittee Staff Director
Caroline Hunsicker, Senior Policy Advisor for Housing, Transportation,
and Native Affairs
Andrew Rothe, Republican Subcommittee Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 2021
Page
Opening statement of Chair Smith................................. 1
Opening statements, comments, or prepared statements of:
Senator Rounds............................................... 2
Chairman Brown............................................... 3
WITNESSES
Brandon Nurmi, Assistant Director, Arrowhead Transit, Arrowhead
Economic Opportunity Agency, Virginia, Minnesota............... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 22
Responses to written questions of:
Senator Crapo............................................ 30
Senator Daines........................................... 30
Kendra McGeady, Director of Transit, Pelivan Transit, Big Cabin,
Oklahoma....................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Responses to written questions of:
Senator Crapo............................................ 31
Senator Daines........................................... 32
Barbara Cline, Executive Director, Prairie Hills Transit, Prairie
Hills Transit, Spearfish, South Dakota......................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 26
Responses to written questions of:
Senator Crapo............................................ 32
Senator Daines........................................... 33
(iii)
RURAL TRANSIT: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR CONNECTING COMMUNITIES
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TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 2021
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community
Development
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met at 2:30 p.m., remotely via Webex, Hon.
Tina Smith, Chair of the Subcommittee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIR TINA SMITH
Chair Smith. Good afternoon. I call the Subcommittee of
Housing, Transportation, and Community Development to order.
For the information of the Senators, there is a series of votes
that starts at about 3 p.m. So I am going to plan on declaring
a brief recess right at 3, which should be after the opening
statements, so that we can go vote. And then we will resume,
and we will aim to complete the questioning of the witnesses by
around 3:45 or so, which should allow us to be finished by the
end of the second vote. But I just wanted everyone to know that
we will set it up that way. Thank you very much.
I want to thank Senator Rounds for working with me today on
this bipartisan hearing focusing on rural transit, and for our
strong relationship on issues that shape the lives of people
living in rural America, transportation among them.
Two years ago, Senator Rounds and I teamed with Senator
Fischer from Nebraska and Senator Baldwin from Wisconsin, to
create the World Economy Working Group, and the purpose of this
working group has been to highlight the great strengths in
rural communities, and the lessons that we can learn from rural
leaders about how the Federal Government can be a good partner
and a better partner.
Small towns and rural places are creative, entrepreneurial,
diverse, wonderful places to live and raise a family, and rural
places produce our food and energy and are hubs of
manufacturing and small business, education, health care, arts,
and culture. We all need rural communities to be successful,
and that means, just like in the suburbs and in cities,
transportation has to work. If you live in northeast Minnesota
or the Black Hills of South Dakota or any other of the vast
rural places in America, you are used to traveling long
distances to do what you need to do, to get to work or to the
doctor, to buy groceries, or to fill prescriptions. And for
transportation to work, there needs to be viable, efficient,
well-functioning transit systems.
``Wait,'' you say, if you live in the city, especially,
``transit is for cities and it won't work in rural places.
People are too spread out. Everyone drives. There's no need for
transit when you live in the country.''
Well, today we are going to hear about how inaccurate this
perception is, and how vital transit is to rural America, and
how important it is that we provide transit options that work
in rural communities. In fact, many people living in rural
America are highly reliant on transit. Folks living in rural
places are more likely to be older and maybe don't drive
anymore, but they still need to get to the doctor. Working
families in rural places may struggle to afford a car and gas,
but they still need to get to work and to school. Without
transit, the economy, health care, education--none of it works.
Intercity bus service connects people to nearby towns and
regional centers. That connects people to jobs and opportunity,
and it fuels those regional economies. New investment in a
transition to a clean economy and transportation, including
electric vehicles and low-carbon renewables like ethanol and
biodiesel, they shouldn't be left out of rural places.
The fact is rural transit providers are full of great ideas
for how to meet the needs of their communities when it comes to
mobility. Rural and small transit systems are leading the way,
innovating with on-demand service, specialized routes, routes
that connect people to specific destinations, and today we are
going to have a chance to learn about this.
As we listen to the panel of rural transit leaders today, I
ask you to keep in mind the veteran who needs to get to a VA
clinic, the person who is trying to get back on their feet by
completing job training, or a senior who is looking for their
weekly fresh produce delivery. Each of these need a reliable,
affordable transit system.
So it is my hope today that your testimony and our
conversation will help to inform this Committee as we work to
write the transit title for the upcoming service transportation
bill. The transit title has historically been a bipartisan area
of agreement, and I know that Chair Brown and Ranking Member
Toomey are working hard to try to reach a bipartisan agreement
once again this year.
So it has been a pleasure to work with Senator Rounds in
planning this hearing. I will now turn to Senator Rounds for
his opening statement, and then I will turn to Senator Brown,
our Chair of Banking, Housing for his remarks.
Thank you, Senator Rounds.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MIKE ROUNDS
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Chair Smith. Look, let me just
say I really do appreciate the bipartisan way in which we have
tried to build a rural America together, and so I do thank you
for putting together the hearing today and your cooperation
with us in moving forward.
I would also like to thank our witnesses for taking the
time to attend today's hearing. And I would especially like to
thank Ms. Barbara Cline. She is from Prairie Hills Transit in
Spearfish, South Dakota, in the beautiful Black Hills. I really
do appreciate her willingness to testify, and I look forward to
hearing from all of the rest of our witnesses as well.
The topic of rural transit is an important issue that has
been uniquely highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the
past year, approximately 68 percent of rural transit systems
were forced to cut services that were already operating on slim
margins. Moving past the pandemic, it will be imperative to get
these rural transit systems operating in a way that really
improves upon the prepandemic norms.
As we look at how to put rural transit on a path forward,
it is important we acknowledge the funding rural programs
received from every one of the COVID relief packages. Just as
an example, the Rural Area Formula Program, Section 5311,
received approximately $3 billion in COVID relief funding over
the past year. This funding undoubtedly assisted non-urban
communities to restructure transit systems that may have taken
a hit during the pandemic. I look forward to seeing how
communities utilized these additional funds to not only move
past the pandemic but to also begin addressing the issues from
before the pandemic.
The rural nature of South Dakota provides us with a unique
perspective on the struggles of small communities, that they
have when it comes to public transit. That is why we have
introduced the Investments in Rural Transit Act, along with my
colleague, Senator Smith, Chair Smith, and Senator Baldwin.
This legislation includes necessary increase of the Federal
share of rural transit assistance for transit projects in high-
need areas. Rural communities simply cannot meet the local
matching requirements to effectively invest in public transit
that these communities desperately need.
I have met with several different rural transit authorities
across South Dakota, and an issue they conveyed to me was the
lack of consistency in Federal funding. We need to help our
rural communities by providing equal opportunities to rural
funding as well as encouraging more consistent funding by
increasing the amount of formula funds as compared to
discretionary funds.
Again, we welcome all of you here today, and I look forward
to hearing from our witnesses on how this Subcommittee can be
of further assistance to rural transit authorities across the
country.
Madam Chair, thank you.
Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Rounds, and before I
introduce the witnesses I am glad to welcome Chair Brown to our
Subcommittee hearing, and I understand he would like to make a
brief opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERROD BROWN
Chairman Brown. I got the word ``brief,'' so thank you,
Madam Chair. And I appreciate the cooperation with Chair Smith
and Ranking Member Rounds. I know this is your second hearing.
You did one on Indian housing. I appreciate how you are
stepping up and using the Subcommittee process, which is so
very important for all of us. And I would say to Mr. Nurmi and
Ms. Cline, you can be proud of your home State Senators as they
have come together on this kind of issue.
I remember some years ago a hearing we did in full
Committee, and I remember Senator Rounds was particularly
engaged and taught a lot of us about rural transit and how
important it is. And as Tina Smith said, when we say ``public
transportation'' we just do not mean Minneapolis and Cleveland.
This Committee understands that public transportation plays a
critical role in pretty much every community, in rural areas
and small towns and midsized cities and old industrial towns,
on the coasts and in the heartland, that Senator Cortez Masto
and Senator Smith and Senator Rounds and I represent.
About 1 million rural households do not have a car, and the
seniors, students, veterans, and Americans with disabilities
that use public transit in places like Lima, Ohio, and Athens,
Ohio, need reliable service. The pandemic was the great
revealer. It has made rural transit ever more essential, with
agencies throughout my State of Ohio and the country providing
not only transportation but also meals and groceries, fresh
food, as Chair Smith said, prescriptions, and access to
vaccines. I am impressed especially with the safety record of
rural transit services. Our transit vans and busses travel long
distances on isolated roads, but they provide very safe
service, as we learned in one of Senator Crapo's hearings
earlier.
I hope our witnesses will talk about what they do to keep
up that safety record. I hope also witnesses will talk about
coordinating Federal programs that support transportation
services. When FDA funding can be coordinated with Medicaid and
VA service, riders get better transportation, but that is not
the case everywhere and it is up to this Subcommittee and the
full Committee to help make that happen.
I will work with Ranking Member Toomey and the Members of
this Committee to advance a service transportation bill with a
robust transit title, as Chair Smith suggested, and we will
tackle other infrastructure investment we need to create
economic growth in all communities, in all of our States.
Madam Chair, thanks for giving me a couple of minutes.
Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Chair Brown. I am now going
to introduce our witnesses. I will introduce all three
witnesses and then turn to each to make your opening
statements.
First, Brandon Nurmi, my fellow Minnesotan, who is the
Assistant Director of Arrowhead Transit, which is headquartered
in Virginia, Minnesota. Arrowhead Transit serves a 10-county
area in northeastern Minnesota.
Kendra McGeady is the Director of Transportation for
Pelivan Transit in Big Cabin, Oklahoma. She leads the
Northeastern Tribal Transit Consortium of Oklahoma, and her
transit system was named the Rural Transit System of the Year
in 2019 by the Community Transportation Association of America.
Barbara Cline is the Executive Director of Prairie Hills
Transit in Spearfish, South Dakota. She is also the chair of
the board of the Community Transportation Association of
America. She testified before the full Committee in 2013, and I
am very glad that Senator Rounds has invited her back again
today.
And thank you so much to all of our witnesses for joining
us.
I want to just say briefly, as we start, before you begin
your opening statements here are a few reminders. Once you
start speaking there will be a slight delay before you are
displayed on the screen. To minimize background noise, we ask
that you click the mute button until it is your turn to speak
or ask questions.
You all should have one box on your screens labeled the
Clock, which will show how much time is remaining. For
witnesses, you will have 5 minutes for your opening statements,
and your full written statement will be made part of the
record. For all Senators, the 5-minute clock applies also to
your questions, and when you have 30 seconds remaining you will
hear that telltale bell ring, reminding you that your time is
almost expired, and it will ring again when you are out of
time.
And if there is a technology issue, I will just skip over
to the next witness or Senator, and we will come back to you.
And to simplify any speaking order issues, we will just go by
order of seniority.
So thank you so much. I will now turn to Mr. Nurmi for your
opening statement. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF BRANDON NURMI, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, ARROWHEAD
TRANSIT, ARROWHEAD ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY AGENCY, VIRGINIA,
MINNESOTA
Mr. Nurmi. Thank you, Chair Smith. Thank you, Chair Brown,
Ranking Member Rounds, and the distinguished Members of the
Committee. My name is Brandon Nurmi. I am an Assistant Director
for Arrowhead Transit.
Arrowhead Transit is the transportation department for a
larger Community Action Program located in northeastern
Minnesota named Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency or AEOA.
Our transportation program began in 1974, as a program for
senior and disabled transportation under an Area Agency on
Aging grant, and has expanded over the last 47 years to a full
rural transit, covering 24,470 square miles across 10 counties.
This is about the same size as the State of West Virginia. We
operate 184 routes of varying frequency, including 19 different
Dial-A-Ride service areas, utilizing 127 buses and over 150
employees including dispatchers, mechanics, and administrative
staff.
By providing safe, affordable, and reliable transportation
to our rural communities many of our passengers have access to
services that they may not have otherwise had. Our aging
population, disabled community, and low-income households have
additional transportation options for accessing things like
medical appointments, employment, shopping, and social events
where transportation is regularly cited as a major barrier.
Arrowhead Transit has been working hard with Minnesota's
Office of Transit and Active Transportation, OTAT, to identify
and address any transportation needs in our area, and are
involved with two of our Regional Transportation Coordinating
Councils to collaborate with other transportation providers and
community partners to try and explore new ways to bridge the
transportation gaps that still exist in the rural and deep
rural areas of the State. OTAT has also been working with all
the State's transportation providers to start building
connections between the different systems, in hopes of
eventually connecting all Minnesotans to the transportation
currently available in other areas.
Arrowhead Transit was awarded a grant under the FTA's
Innovative Mobility Integration program to work on developing a
rural transportation program utilizing local transportation
options and volunteer drivers to provide first and last mile
access to existing transportation services for people outside
the transit service areas, utilizing technology for trip
planning and integrated payment for the whole trip. It is our
hope that, if successful, we would be able to utilize this
program in additional rural areas across the State.
During the COVID pandemic, Arrowhead Transit, again with
the support of OTAT, was able to provide free rides to COVID
testing sites, provide additional transportation to support
pop-up sites, and offer free vaccine transportation inside our
service areas. We also partnered with Scenic Rivers Health to
offer cost free vaccine transportation options to deep rural
areas around their Eveleth clinic with appointment blocks
reserved just for passengers that wanted to utilize the
service.
AEOA's largest community contribution during the pandemic
came from food and meal delivery. AEOA received nearly weekly
shipments of fresh produce, proteins, and dairy products from
May of 2020 through May of 2021, through the Coronavirus Food
Assistance Program, funded by the USDA. Over that time period
we served over 95,000 individuals in 35,499 household, with
over 2.1 million pounds of food, by collaborating with over 80
community partners across our service area. We were able to
accomplish a large portion of this by utilizing the transit
buses for food delivery to multiple rural distributionsites
being run by other programs and agencies. To date, Arrowhead
Transit buses delivered 37,805 boxes, school lunch meals, food
shelf deliveries, and 1-day and 7-day shelf-stable meal kits
during the Peacetime Emergency.
The overall theme in all of our efforts is working toward
providing access to transportation in as many areas as we can--
access to services, access to employment, access to social
events, access to transportation. One of the largest barriers
we face in rural transportation is the ability to provide
access to rural and deep rural areas that would not meet
classic passenger metrics used to evaluate the value of a
route. We have tried to address this by offering routes based
on a minimum passenger basis. If we have X number of passengers
that request to use the route on the books, then we will send
it. While this provides the basic access to the route, it
requires passengers to recruit their own riders to ensure that
the route meets the minimum passenger requirement and removes
the ``reliability'' of the transportation.
If you know the route is always going, then you can
schedule appointments or plan your trip based on the route's
availability. Allotting greater weight to a route that provides
access without having to worry as much about the classic metric
of passengers per hour would be one way that rural transit
providers could address these gaps. I believe that sometimes
the need for a route is not necessarily that there will be a
lot of people that will be riding it.
To close out, I would like to share a story about a couple
in the Ely, Minnesota, that experienced their own issue with
transportation gap coverage. I will skim through it because it
is kind of a long story. But the basics is that her and her
husband were located outside of our service area. She was in a
wheelchair. They were unable to access any transportation, even
private carriers, and we were able to help them.
Thank you very much.
Chair Smith. Thank you so much. I will now turn to Ms.
Kendra McGeady.
STATEMENT OF KENDRA McGEADY, DIRECTOR OF TRANSIT, PELIVAN
TRANSIT, BIG CABIN, OKLAHOMA
Ms. McGeady. Thank you. Subcommittee Chair Smith, Chairman
Brown, Ranking Member Rounds, and Members of the Senate Banking
Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community
Development, I am Kendra McGeady, Director of Pelivan of
Transit and the Northeast Travel Transit Consortium, located in
Oklahoma. I am thankful to have the opportunity today to
discuss rural and tribal transit, the challenges we face, and
the potential for opportunities to assist in better meeting the
needs of our riders.
Pelivan Transit is a department of Grand Gateway Economic
Development Association, and has been in operation for 35
years. We offer on-demand and demand response services to a
population of over 257,000, covering 7 counties and 4,466
square miles. Our 61-vehicle fleet includes minivans, commutes,
and cutaways. Of those vehicles, almost half are past their
useful life. Our mechanics are well trained and do an excellent
job of maintaining our fleet.
Our operation includes a full-service maintenance facility
and one call/one click mobility management center from which
all operations are dispatched. We travel approximately 882,000
revenue miles a year, completing 149,000 trips to health care,
social service, employment, education, shopping, and other life
necessity appointments.
The past year of operations have been far different than
anything we have seen before, with no shortage of challenges.
Without the assistance of the $2.8 million in CARES Act fund
that we received, we would not have survived the pandemic and
its crushing loss of ridership, contractual service, and local
match.
CARES Act funds and the zero-match requirement were
lifesaving, allowing us to maintain effective, reliable
services for those 100 percent transit-dependent individuals
who continued to need transportation, as well as retain staff
and continue maintenance operations. In addition, it enabled us
to quickly pivot from people mover to homebound meal delivery
service for senior citizens. In the past 15 months, Pelivan has
delivered more than 8,000 meals to homebound seniors. The
funding also allowed us to transport individuals to and from
vaccine clinics, providing just over 1,800 trips for vaccine in
recent months.
During the pandemic, we saw our ridership by 68 percent,
and since our State's reopening we have seen a steady increase,
and are currently down by 27 percent systemwide.
As a rural provider we encounter obstacles daily, due to a
lack of adequate funding, diminished staff, aging fleet,
failing infrastructure, insufficient broadband, and the
increasingly elusive local match required of all 5311
operators. The upcoming reauthorization of the FAST Act will
provide an opportunity to develop solutions to many of these
challenges. Adjusting our ability to sell vehicles after their
useful life would allow 5311 and 5310 recipients to sell
capital assets at market value and provide the opportunity to
increase local match and reinvest in our systems.
In a postpandemic world, securing match has become a bigger
challenge, and communities face revenue shortfalls as a result
of economic slumps associated with COVID. I very much
appreciate the leadership of Senators Smith and Rounds with
their cosponsored Investments in Rural Transit Act of 2021,
which seeks to increase local share flexibility for systems
like Pelivan.
In an effort to manage some of these issues, Pelivan has
implemented successful and innovative partnerships with our
fellow transit agencies and private companies to provide more
accessible and equitable transportation to the residents of
Oklahoma. They include veteran-specific programs that have
provided 72,000 discounted trips to veterans across a 29-county
region, and a regional, on-demand, afterhours ADA service,
providing flexible transit to a 22,000-square-mile area, or
one-third of the State of Oklahoma. Both projects were funded
through USDOT competitive grant programs.
Set-aside competitive and discretionary grant opportunities
for 5311 properties would provide a much-needed avenue for
small systems to fund the implementation of smart technologies
and make the move toward low- and no-emission fleets.
Rural transit operations like Pelivan are not simply
scaled-down versions of transit operations in major cities, and
should not be viewed as such. The geography and demographics in
rural America have forced many rural operations to think
regionally, as employment, health care, retail, and educational
opportunities take a similar approach. The result of this is
increasing miles for every trip.
Located in the heart of Indian Country, Pelivan Transit
provides transit services to the Cherokee Nation and operates
the Northeast Tribal Transit Consortium for the nine tribes of
Ottawa County. Tribal ridership in a normal fiscal year is just
over 47,000 completed trips. Commuter routes have been
established in both operations, providing transportation to and
from Native-owned and operated places of employment and medical
facilities.
Innovative in their approach to service, the Cherokee
Nation is currently expanding transit into currently unserved
communities, utilizing on-demand technology, and has introduced
electronic vehicles into their fleet.
It is our hope that today we can convey to you our
experiences, both good and bad, and share ideas of how we might
form a more efficient, equitable public transit system for
individuals residing in Rural America. Thank you.
Senator Smith. Thank you very much, Ms. McGeady. And I will
turn now to Barbara Cline.
STATEMENT OF BARBARA CLINE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PRAIRIE HILLS
TRANSIT, SPEARFISH, SOUTH DAKOTA
Ms. Cline. Subcommittee Chair Smith, Ranking Subcommittee
Member Rounds, and Members of the Subcommittee and full
Committee, thank you for inviting me today to discuss the
opportunities and challenges of connecting communities in rural
States like South Dakota. My name is Barb Cline, and I am here
today representing both Prairie Hills Transit in Spearfish,
South Dakota, as its Executive Director of 31 years, and the
Community Transportation Association of America as its Board
President.
Prairie Hills Transit serves a 16,500-square-mile service
area bordering Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming. It grew
from an operation that started with a single van in 1989, to
one today comprised of over 50 vehicles that are primarily cars
and cutaway buses, has 65 employees operating in 9 South Dakota
counties, and serving two Native American reservations. We have
added 7 communities to our service through coordination and
consolidation.
In Spearfish, we operate out of a full-service, intermodal
transportation facility that serves as the Jefferson Lines
intercity bus depot, operate a one-call center, house a full
maintenance shop, have administrative offices, and offer a
licensed childcare center.
We believe that mobility is a basic right for all
Americans, one that requires stable, predictable Federal
investments, paired with support from State, county, and local
governments, as well as private sector partnerships.
Nothing is more important to the future mobility of rural
and small urban America than Congress reauthorizing service
transportation legislation, on time and with the resources
these communities rely on.
Rural communities depend on the support of Federal programs
to a greater degree than their larger urban counterparts, as
State investments are often inconsistent and local resources
are strained. Without dedicated and increased operating funding
for Section 5311, our passengers will be the hardest hit,
arriving late to work, or not at all, and missing life-
sustaining medical appointments.
The basic independence of many rural residents will be
threatened if increased local share flexibility for rural
transportation operators is not considered. This is something I
know Senators Smith and Rounds have committed to. Demand for
rural and small urban transit is growing, and why funding
formula programs is vital.
A prime example of the need for increased Federal
investment is in the bus and bus facility capital program. By
housing our vehicles in garages, we protect them from the
extreme weather conditions. We have 7 garages in our 15
communities, and need more.
Prairie Hills Transit has secured funding for two large
technology applications. One is a smartphone app that allows
patrons to book trips, and the other will aloe implementation
of an AI-based, smart dispatch to provide micro transit
service. Each requires a 20 percent local cash investment.
Health care trips are inundating transit operations. We
partner with hospitals, veterans clinics, 24-hour care
facilities, dialysis centers, and more for some of South
Dakota's most vulnerable populations. A 40-mile, one-way, life-
sustaining dialysis trip, or assisting local hospitals with
patient discharge, sometimes to another State, is just part of
what we do every day.
Medicaid NEMT is an important component in our service.
Right-sizing regulations and considering both size and budget
of smaller operations is essential. From a safety standpoint,
let us get back to providing trips and requiring less
reporting.
None of us can place a value on the trips that rural
transportation performs every day, but those of us working in
transit teams just like mine know they are priceless. A
resident who hasn't left their home in months gets to a
scheduled medical appointment, a child with Down syndrome gives
a smile that would melt your heart to their driver every day,
and the driver who drops off a lanyard with a tooth in it to a
child after their shift is done so the tooth fairy can come,
those are what of faces of rural transportation looks like, and
that is exactly when the challenges you speak of become the
opportunities to provide vital connections.
In closing, it has been an honor to testify before the
Senate Banking Committee today, and I am most grateful for that
opportunity. I would be happy to take any questions when that
time arrives. Thank you.
Senator Smith. Thank you so much to all of our witnesses
today, and I am sure that there will be many questions for you.
The 3 p.m. vote is just about to start, and so I am going
to recess for 5 minutes so that the Senators can go vote, and
then we will come right back with questions. So that is our
plan.
The Subcommittee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Chair Smith. The Subcommittee will now resume and begin
questions. Thank you, everyone, for bearing with us while we
take care of our Senate votes here. And I am going to start
with the first questions, and this is a question that I would
like to ask to the whole panel.
A survey conducted by the Community Transportation Alliance
of America showed that over two-thirds of rural transit systems
reported cutting service in the past 10 months. We heard from
all of you about some of the challenges that you have
experienced due to the pandemic. At the same time, a quarter of
rural transit systems that were surveyed also reported adding
new services during the pandemic, to help with meal deliveries,
prescription deliveries, and access to vaccine appointments.
So it strikes me that while certainly this year has been so
devastating to so many Americans, at the same time we have seen
really important leaps forward in innovation, and trying new
things, and figuring things out in different ways. And as we
all talked about going back to normal, or getting back to
normal, I am quite interested in the things that we have
learned that we do not want to lose as we move forward.
So let me ask the panel, each of you, tell us a little bit
about what lessons you have learned from COVID, you and your
system have learned from COVID, and what are the things that
you started doing that worked, that we need to figure out how
to support you and continuing?
Maybe I'll start with Ms. Cline.
Ms. Cline. Thank you. I think one of the most important
things that we gained from this, our system didn't ever
discontinue any services. We operated so people could get where
they needed to go. But it was very apparent immediately that we
needed to begin a whole new stringent set of cleaning standards
and training standards. And so those are some of the first
things that we did, and we have learned that, boy, that was a
really good idea. Maybe we should have been doing this from the
beginning.
We brought in a team of health care professionals to our
facility. They rode with drivers, they looked at our facility,
and they gave us recommendations. And so for us that was a
whole new set of how can we do things better, how can we
improve it, and how can we continue to keep our drivers and our
passengers safe. And I think, as we know, we may not be done
with this crisis, so we want to be prepared to be ready for
that.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much. Ms. McGeady?
Ms. McGeady. Yes. Thank you. I think one of the main things
that we learned is that we are very resilient as providers, for
sure, and I have to echo what Barb said. We did not suspend
services. At Pelivan Transit we are very fortunate that we did
not have to do that. We were able to continue operating.
But I think that the cleanliness aspect of things has been
something that we learned that we will continue to take with
us, as Barb said. Our State DOT was very kind to us in allowing
us to order up to $6 million for the PPE from the State
contract that ODOT funded, which was amazing for all of us. And
again, I think that moving forward our disinfecting process and
the cleanliness process is going to continue to maintain where
it is. It is now part of maintenance. It is just a different
avenue.
Another thing that we did at Pelivan Transit, this was pre-
COVID, though. We had implemented an account-based payment
system, and saw registered users increase by almost 4,000
throughout COVID-19. I think less cash interaction and the
ability to just load your account was well received throughout
COVID-19.
Chair Smith. Thank you so much. Mr. Nurmi, thank you. I am
so impressed by the work that all of you, including Arrowhead
Transit, have done to adapt to this env and figure out what to
do, and be resilient, as we just heard. Tell us a little bit
about what you learned.
Mr. Nurmi. Thank you. First, to echo what both Barb and
Kendra said, the cleaning protocols that we were able to put in
place and the protections that we could put in place for our
passengers and for our drivers was definitely a lesson that we
are going to continue carry forward into the future.
One of the really big things that we were able to learn
during COVID was all the different community partners that we
have in the area and all the different services that we could
do with all of these different partners. I think the biggest
thing we took out of there was all of these new relationships
that we can continue to use and carry forward for more
programs.
We did have a small time, probably 3 months, where some of
our services did get discontinued, but not very many of them.
For the most part we stayed fully operational through all of
COVID as well.
So yeah, we are also looking much more closely at
contactless payment systems. It is another one of those
benefits that we got to learn about during the COVID crisis.
Chair Smith. That is great. And while I am waiting for
Senator Rounds--I don't think Senator Rounds is back yet from
the floor; his camera is not on--let me just ask you, as a
follow-up to all of your testimony, one of the things that we
did in the CARES Act is that we provided $25 billion in transit
relief at a 100 percent Federal share, so no local match
requirement for either capital or operating expenses. Several
of you mentioned this in your testimony.
Anything you want to add or anything more you want to say
about the importance of that 100 percent Federal contribution
and how that has allowed you to do the things that you wanted
to do during this tough time?
Ms. Cline. Well, one of the things that we did was we
immediately implemented an administrative leave policy, if you
will. So our biggest fear was for individuals that didn't have
work, that didn't have hours to work, that they would not be
able to take care of their families, you know, make house
payments, those kinds of things. We wanted to make sure that
they were taken care of. We also wanted to make sure that they
came back to us when the time was right, when we were ready to
pull the plug and say OK, everybody is back full-time hours. We
wanted to make sure that they had been paid through the whole
pandemic, so that they were willing and able, benefits were
paid, all those kinds of things, that they were taken care of.
That was one of the biggest things. But, of course, to keep
us whole so we could continue operations, even at a much-
reduced level, sometimes your overhead costs--well, always your
overhead costs--are there, whether you are putting service on
the street 8 hours a day or 2 hours a day. So those were a
couple of the primary things that were important to us.
Chair Smith. Thank you. Thank you so much.
If Senator Rounds is ready I will turn it over to him.
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it,
and I think this is going to work just fine the way that we are
doing it. We got in early. I think you were the first vote on
the Democrat side, and I was the first vote on the Republican
side, so at least we are setting a good example in here.
Ms. Cline, I would like to just thank you for taking the
time out of your day to join us all the way from Spearfish. I
want to begin by referencing the investments in the Rural
Transit Act that we have introduced, along with my colleagues,
Senator Smith and Senator Baldwin. Our bill will increase
Federal share for operating assistance in areas with high
transit dependency if it is an area of persistent poverty, has
a population where at least 25 percent of the residents are
retirement age, has health care shortages, or has low
population density.
My question, I guess, is in your experience, could you
explain why it would be necessary for extremely rural
communities, like those that I just referenced, to receive
additional Federal funding for their transit systems?
Ms. Cline. Absolutely. As you know, many of the 15
communities that I provide service to and through are very low
density. They are very small communities. They are very high
senior populations. Most of them are not affluent retirees.
Medical needs are extremely high for them, and they do not have
clinics or hospitals in a close proximity.
So what we are seeing is that they want to remain aging in
place. They want to have the dignity of living in their own
homes for as long as they can, which, of course, drives up the
number of trips that we make, the expenses for the vehicles,
all of those kinds of things.
So for rural--and I am even going to call it frontier,
because a lot of these frontier--if they do not have public
transportation, people would be forced to move to other
communities, which will result in even more small South Dakota
communities becoming ghost towns. So we feel very strong that
it is important to get those people to dialysis, to radiation,
to all those medical trips, in particular, sometimes even
grocery stores or shopping needs. They just do not have them in
the communities that they live in.
Senator Rounds. I appreciate that, but I also want to talk
about another segment of our population that sometimes, I
guess, I consider to be underserved as well. That is
individuals that are living with a disability. And they would
love to be able to get to a place where they can be a part of a
working community. They want to be actively involved. They want
to be part of an economy. And they are not necessarily able to
drive. Can you talk a little bit about that segment of the
population that you serve as well?
Ms. Cline. I can, and we are seeing more and more
individuals just like you are speaking about. Some of them are
even starting with the high school-aged students who live in
small communities, Mom and Dad do not have the ability to get
them into a larger school system, but, you know these are the
individuals of our future. And if we can get them using public
transportation at that age, we can keep those people as riders
on our bus, and we can continue to build on that ridership to
help them feel and be part of the economy. They can help drive
the economy.
As you probably know, most of our vehicles are either lift
or ramped equipped, so we are able to get those individuals to
where they need. A large percentage of our riders are through
adjustment training centers, sheltered workshops, and so those
individuals are using our vehicles as well. Part of the driving
force is we would really like to be able to get them into more
individual employment settings where jobs are offered. They are
not always offered in the community that they live in.
Senator Rounds. Thank you. Madam Chair, thank you very
much. I appreciate that. And once again, Mrs. Cline, thank you
for taking the time to participate with us today.
Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Rounds. I will turn next to
Senator Cortez Masto.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking
Member, and to all of the panelists. I so appreciate the
conversation today.
I am from Nevada, and in Nevada there is a need for
investments that balance our rapid population growth and our
important tourism industry. But we also have very unique nature
of larger, vast differences, very sparse populations and
communities that have local financial limitations, given the
level of public lands that surround them.
Mr. Nurmi, like you I have mining communities who need
transit support in rural parts of my State. I have--let me just
give you an example. There is a rural transportation director
in Elko County who is over 200 miles from large cities, so
their operation is having to serve as the focal provider for a
large county and region, which includes mining operations. They
also serve as the coordinator or facilitator for the whole
region, I think, Ms. Cline, like you talked about in your
experiences.
One additional specific challenge that I see in our rural
communities, and I hear it all the time, is in inner-city
transportation opportunities. How do we get folks not only
around town but from town to town, or to essential services
like the VA? These rural communities I am talking about are
along our Interstate 80 corridor. The AMTRAK service is too
infrequent for our needs, and bus operators have pulled out of
this stretch of the I-80 corridor.
Elko is one of the places that I am thinking about with my
bipartisan More DOT Grants Act, and that is to level the
playing field for Federal grant funding to help counties and
communities like those in Nevada who have more than 50 percent
of their land managed by the Federal Government, and less than
100,000 population. Every community deserves quality transit
and transportation services that build connections to their
opportunities and provides essential mobility.
My question for the panelists, and this is what I hear in
my communities as well, I'm curious how you address this, or if
you would, please, for me. Would you agree that fundamentally
we need flexibility in how local communities can use Federal
transit dollars to allow for their individual States' unique
rural needs, which may be different than rural communities in
other parts of the country? And maybe, Mr. Nurmi, let me start
with you.
Mr. Nurmi. Thank you. Yeah, actually I would agree with the
need for flexibility for funding. So the way that we structure
our transit system is we have 10 separate counties, but each
county is operated as its own individual entity, and then we
work on connecting those counties together. So each county has
its own transit advisory committee, and then we address the
needs of each one of those individual counties through the
management and the administrative staff in those areas.
One county, while we do have an overall service design in
which the way that we deliver services for the most part, we
always try and make sure that the needs of the individual
communities are the needs that we are addressing. So I would
definitely agree that flexibility for exactly what is needed
for those particular areas is a vital part of what we can do to
most help the community members that we serve.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. And Ms. Cline,
flexibility. How has that, or would that help you as well, in
unique needs that you see?
Ms. Cline. For many of our communities we have very lengthy
trips, regional trips if you will, between medical locations
for folks. Our major specialty corridor for doctors is in Rapid
City, which is 50 miles just from Spearfish. From all the other
communities it can be 100 to 150 miles. So some of the
flexibility that we have there would be very helpful in how
those trips are determined.
We do some vanpools, for instance, with our National Guard.
They have vehicles located at different garages and use those
to get to a single location. So they are utilizing resources
that we have, we are training their drivers, those kinds of
things.
So I think it is creativity, how we can work making other
partners aware of what we are able to do, and being willing to
be part of that opportunity to make change.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. I know my time is running
out. Madam Chair, I do not want to leave Ms. McGeady out if she
has any comments to this as well that she would like to share.
Ms. McGeady. Thank you. I think that this is a good point
to make about regional coordination. One of the things that we
do here at Pelivan Transit is we have created a regional on-
demand transportation system that includes providers from four
different agencies crossing county lines, and this enables us
to--a few years ago we saw several of our local community
hospitals close in Oklahoma, and that really prompted a need
for regional coordination as medical facilities moved out of
our small communities and into the metro area.
So I think that this is a good spot for regional
coordination amongst different transit providers and social
services agencies, hospitals, and things like that, to help
meet the needs of these long-distance trips.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you so much. Thank you to all
the panelists.
Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Senator Cortez Masto. And I
am very glad--let me just double check. We alternated between
Democrats and Republicans. I am not sure if we have any--if
Senator Scott is on. If not, I will go to Senator Warnock, who
has joined us. Greetings, Senator Warnock.
Senator Warnock. Thank you so much, Chair Smith. Public
transportation, whether in Taylor County, Georgia, or New York
City, connects people to their jobs, their schools, families,
grocery stores, health care, and so much more. Georgia's 80
rural transit systems serve 95 counties out of our 159
counties, and are a lifeline for many low-income and elderly
residents, as well as veterans who live in real areas. These
transit operators, like the three of you testifying today, do
their best to serve their communities and get people where they
need to do. But limited service, 5 days a week, is not enough
for many families in rural areas without a car or
transportation options.
This question is for all of you or any of you. Is the
Federal Government providing enough funding for rural transit?
Ms. Cline. Well, I don't mean to keep going first but I
know the timeclock is clicking. I don't believe there is enough
Federal investment if transit systems are willing and able to
expand into those additional days of service. Most of us
operate within the budgets that we have. We do just as much as
we can with what we have. But usually it is drawn short with
expanding in the smaller communities, in particular, for those
additional days of service.
Veterans, what I would like to say is we have a highly
rural transportation grant geared specifically to counties in
South Dakota that are highly rural, and we are able to provide
transportation for those veterans without a cost to them. We
are very happy with that, very proud of what we do. But we have
been able to expand that into Memorandums of Agreement with six
different agencies in Wyoming, so they are also able to help
our veterans.
But your original question, I think, was more the expansion
to the Saturday-Sunday service. Bigger communities can probably
do that in rural communities. Smaller communities are
challenged just to find enough staff to operate Monday through
Friday, and sometimes it is only 3 days a week or 2 days a
week.
Senator Warnock. Let me shift, unless someone else wants to
address that question. Let me shift to another topic. I know
that there is not just one type of cost when it comes to
running a transit agency. There are capital costs like buses,
operating costs like salaries, fuel, planning costs. Are we
providing right now the right mix of funding and making that
funding accessible, and what would it mean for you to have more
access to more operating funds, if that is what you think we
need, especially if we lowered the non-Federal match?
Ms. McGeady. Senator, I will take that, if that is all
right. I think that flexibility in operating would be a game-
changer for rural transit systems. Moving to an 80-20 match
would be incredibly helpful, and I think that some of the
things that we have done with our PICK Transportation project
here is utilizing funds to increase hours of service, back to
your former question, and we have seen great adoption with
that. But I think that flexibility in funding is incredibly
important. I know that it used to be even an 85-15 match, and
if we could see that I think the ability to expand and invest
and reinvigorate our systems and keep up with changing times
and technologies and move forward into the green age,
flexibility is going to be key to that.
Senator Warnock. Thank you so much. I thank you for your
response. Rural areas deserve public transit as well, and while
there are fewer people there is often more ground to cover, and
we have got to make sure that people are connected. And I often
say physical mobility is connected to social mobility, economic
mobility, and so we have got to provide more funding and we
have got to lower the barrier, which is why I support Chair
Smith's and Ranking Member Rounds' Investment in Rural Transit
Act, and I hope we can borrow a page from that as we
reauthorize service transportation programs. Thank you so much.
Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Warnock. Let me just--I
think that Senator Ossoff is joining us. Fantastic. Senator
Ossoff, your timing is impeccable, and I will turn to you next,
unless we have--I want to double check we don't have a
Republican who is waiting to ask. Very good. I think not. Go
ahead, Senator Ossoff. Thank you.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank
you to our panelists for joining us today to discuss this
important issue and opportunities to invest in rural transit. I
would like to direct my first question please to Ms. McGeady.
Ms. McGeady, as you know, today 100 transit agencies and
municipal governments are using on-demand public transit in at
least 35 States, and increasingly these agencies are turning to
microtransit services to improve the customer experience,
eliminating the multiday, reserve-in-advance requirements,
reducing wait times, and improving service with app-driven
customer feedback.
In Georgia, for example, the cities of Gainesville and
Valdosta have leveraged microtransit technologies, often
through public-private partnerships, to improve service to
their communities. In Gainesville, they are expanding their
service now, and the Director of Transit in Gainesville has
described microtransit as a game-changer. In Valdosta, Georgia,
since the launch of their Valdosta On Demand service in April,
they are already seeing daily ridership numbers as high as 300
per day. And I understand that you have worked, in your
official capacity, Ms. McGeady, with a Georgia-based company,
Routematch, in Oklahoma.
So my question for you, please, is, in what ways have
microtransit partnerships improved rural transit in your State
and across the country, and what lessons do you think we can
apply in Georgia and elsewhere as we build this infrastructure
legislation in the Senate?
Ms. McGeady. Well, thank you, Senator. I think that
microtransit can meet the needs of systems of all sizes and
States. For example, rural and Tribal facilities, we do an
advanced booking environment, as you know, and this provides a
more spontaneous travel option for individuals and meets the
immediate needs of ridership.
Oftentimes I like to liken it to a mother who is transit
dependent who has a child with a fever or is injured, and they
have an immediate need that needs to be met. They do not have
time to book a trip 3 days in advance to get to urgent care, or
even to get a carton of milk, if they are trying to make dinner
and they need that. So I think that it provides a much-needed,
immediate response to ridership needs.
Advanced booking environments do not do that. With a 3-day
limitation and limited resources, and particularly after COVID-
19 we have seen these things fall short in many areas. Our
system, PICK Transportation, which is what we formed with our
partner, Uber, already we have created a regional, on-demand
transportation system with this on-demand technology, and I
have seen systems--we are rural and Tribal providers, and one
of the things that I think happens is that directors get
oftentimes afraid of moving forward in technology due to rider
adoption and driver adoption. You have to be considerate of the
fact that so many of these people are pen and paper. But I have
watched these transit systems jump from pen and paper to on-
demand during COVID-19, and it has been amazing.
The immediate need, though, I think, is what microtransit
really serves, and not only in rural systems but in urban
systems as well. It can meet the first and last mile challenge
on a statewide level.
So all of these things, I believe, can be duplicated in
other areas, creating regional partnerships, finding partners
with technology providers, and again, I just think that it
provides a more flexible, spontaneous system for individuals
who do not have time to take off work. It costs money to take
off work to get to where you need to go, and that is why I also
believe in afterhours flexible service. But I think that
microtransit, the most important thing that they do is provide
spontaneity and immediate need for ridership.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. McGeady.
Mr. Nurmi, it is, of course, well understood that in order
to reduce air pollution and carbon emissions we need to
transition rapidly to lower-emission and no-emission vehicles.
Urban transit systems in Macon, Georgia and Chatham County,
Georgia, are already making strides toward electrification. The
University of Georgia, in fact, also boasts the largest
electric fleet of vehicles of any public university in the
country. And we want to achieve the same results and
opportunities for rural transit and microtransit.
Can you please reflect on your experience electrifying the
Dial-A-Ride service in you Minnesota, and how we might benefit
from your experience and apply those lessons in Georgia?
Mr. Nurmi. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So we have recently
gotten a grant through the Minnesota Department of
Transportation for clean energy. What that is going to do is it
is allowing us to purchase two Class 400 electric buses so that
we can test them in the extreme north climate area and get a
good feel for exactly how we can apply those inside a
controlled Dial-A-Ride service area.
It is our hope that if it is successful and we are able to
tackle those challenges that we will be moving our entire Dial-
A-Ride fleet over to electric buses by 2040.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Nurmi. Thank you, Madam
Chair.
Chair Smith. Thank you so much, and we will turn now to
Senator Lummis.
Senator Lummis. I don't think so. OK, am I on?
Chair Smith. You are on. You are good.
Senator Lummis. Thanks so much, Chairman Smith and Ranking
Member Rounds. I really appreciate you doing this hearing. It
is an important subject, so we can highlight the transit needs
for rural America in addition to urban America.
You know, transit is almost always thought of as an urban
issue, but small bus operations and on-demand transit
operations play key roles in connecting low-income citizens in
rural communities too. And so I want to focus my questions
today on making sure Congress does not lose sight of how
transit can work in rural areas as we work on an infrastructure
bill.
So I would like to ask any of the witnesses, I have heard
that Bus Formula program may not be providing the type of
support that rural areas need. Not only has this program been
deprioritized by Congress, compared to other FTA programs, but
I have heard that the level of support being provided to rural
areas is insufficient to meet the needs of the transit agencies
that operate in rural areas.
So what have your experiences been with the Bus Formula
program?
Mr. Nurmi. Hi. This is Brandon. I will take that one. So
our experiences with the Bus Formula program have actually been
that most of our rural transit agencies have an aging fleet, so
the amount of buses that are available statewide, under the
current funding, are not meeting the needs of even the existing
fleets that we have, let alone any expansions into further
routes for any of our rural transit systems here.
We have that recent Federal grant, which Minnesota was a
beneficiary of, which has definitely helped to get us caught
back up, but that is just one-time burst funding and is not
sustainable over the long term.
So, in short, I would say that Bus Formula grant has to be
rethought or reinvested in so that our transit systems do not
become aging rattletraps, so to speak, of unsafe
transportation.
Senator Lummis. So is the rural set-aside for the
competitive bus grants adequate, and how impactful would it be
if Congress required a higher percentage of competitive grants
being set aside for rural areas in this program?
Mr. Nurmi. I want to be careful what I say here. It would
be outstanding if we were able to set aside more money for
buses. That said, it would be not beneficial if it was at the
expense of other programs. So it is just as important that we
invest in technology and operations in the other parts of rural
transportation. So I would definitely say more investment in
vans and in buses and in the opportunities for those would be
beneficial, but not at the cost of other portions of the
transit needs.
Senator Lummis. So similar to the Bus Formula program,
Congress has also deprioritized the Rural Area Formula program.
Can any of you talk about why this program is important in your
daily operations?
Ms. Cline. Senator Lummis, I am Barb Cline from your
neighboring South Dakota. For us, absolutely. Additional
funding, even a lower match so people could update fleets and
so forth, would be very beneficial. For the six agencies that
we are working with in Wyoming, I know that they are dealing
with fleet sizes that need to be updated, and, in fact, we have
a Memorandum of Agreement with them where they are providing
veteran transportation free of charge through a Federal grant
that are a sub-recipient of.
So more is better. Less match would be great.
Senator Lummis. Thank you, Ms. Cline. Would you support
Congress prioritizing the Rural Area Formula program in this
reauthorization, giving you the resources your organizations
need? I know you got resources during the COVID pandemic, but
after COVID resources are gone, the challenges that you all
face running a transit agency in a rural area will still
remain. So how do you respond to that?
Ms. Cline. Higher is better. You know the more funding that
we can get, we can do some of the things that Senator Warnock
was talking about--expanding yours, expanding days of service.
You know, people cannot do everything they need to do Monday
through Friday, so I believe that you would have full support
in rural transportation, and increasing that would be very
appreciated.
Senator Lummis. Thank you so much. I want to thank the
witnesses and the leadership of the Committee, and I yield
back.
Chair Smith. Thank you so much, Senator Lummis.
Senator Rounds, I want to just turn to you. We have, I
think--oh, I see Senator Tester. I am not sure if Senator
Tester has a question?
[No response.]
Chair Smith. Not sure. Well, Senator Rounds, let me turn to
you. Do you have any additional questions for our witnesses
today?
Senator Rounds. Madam Chair, thank you. I really
appreciated the participation of all of our Members, and I know
that we are in the middle of five more votes yet. And so at
this point I just thank everyone there for my closing comments,
and I will leave it up to you as to how much further you want
to go with this. But I just appreciate everybody's
participation this afternoon.
Chair Smith. Thank you. Thank you so much, Senator Rounds.
I will wrap up in just a minute.
I just want to follow up with one additional question,
which I am going to direct to Ms. McGeady, because I want to
just ask you about the Tribal Transit Program before we wrap
up. I know that Tribes in Minnesota have valued this program.
They have used this to purchase buses and renovate maintenance
facilities and provide medical transportation and so forth. Of
course, this benefits not only Tribes but also communities
surrounding Tribes. Could you just talk briefly about your
experience with this and how tribally operated transit supports
Tribal members and the community around Tribal nations?
Ms. McGeady. Absolutely. Thank you, Senator. Tribal
operations are very unique, as you know. One of the reasons
that I think that we provide them their direct funding is that
we respect and recognize their sovereignty. But again, very
unique, oftentimes compared to small systems because they are
small, nimble fleets, much like ours. But the services that
they provide are different than what we do as a public transit
provider. Their ridership fees are different. They go to
different medical facilities. They often work in tribally owned
and operated places of business. Again, they go to medical
facilities which are owned and operated by the Tribe.
So I think that they meet a need within their nation in a
way that only they can. However, they also provide an enhanced
system to the public transit system, as all of their operations
are open to the public. Therefore, they meet the needs of
general public riders who reside within the nations that they
serve. So I think that they are vital to public transit in our
great nation here.
Chair Smith. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Well, I want to close now by just thanking all of our
panelists for your excellent testimony. I think that you have
collectively made a strong case for the value of rural transit.
You have helped to shift that perception that transit only
works and is only relevant in the cities, when, of course, that
is so clearly not the case.
I think you have also shown the innovation and creativity
that you have deployed, not just during the COVID pandemic but
throughout all of your experience running small, regional
transit systems and rural transit systems. Though I have to
say, some of you are running transit systems in areas that are
as big as, or bigger than some States, so it seems like a
misnomer to call them small.
I also heard, loud and clear, as I suspect Senator Rounds
did, the importance of investment in this area, and not taking
investment from one area to fund another, but to have a
balanced investment portfolio. And I am grateful also for the
support I think we have heard, Senator Rounds, for our bill,
the Investments in Rural Transit Act, and how important that
100 percent Federal contribution is to really allow rural
transit systems to operate and do the work that they need to
do.
So I am very grateful for all of you. Thank you so much to
all of the Senators who participated today, most especially my
Ranking Member, Senator Rounds. For Senators who wish to submit
questions for the record, those questions are due 1 week from
today, which will be Tuesday, June 15th. For our witnesses, you
will have 45 days to respond to any questions for the record.
And thank you again.
With that this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:51 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Prepared statements and responses to written questions
supplied for the record follow:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRANDON NURMI
Assistant Director, Arrowhead Transit, Arrowhead Economic Opportunity
Agency, Virginia, Minnesota
June 8, 2021
Thank you, Chairwoman Smith, Ranking Member staff, and
distinguished Members of the Committee.
My name is Brandon Nurmi, I am an Assistant Director for Arrowhead
Transit. Arrowhead Transit is the transportation department for a
larger Community Action Program located in northeastern Minnesota named
Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency or AEOA. Our transportation
program began in 1974 as a program for senior and disabled
transportation under an Area Agency on Aging grant and has expanded
over the last 47 years to a full rural public transit agency covering
24,470 square miles across 10 counties. This is about the same size as
the State of West Virginia. We operate 184 routes of varying frequency
including 19 different Dial-A-Ride service areas utilizing 127 buses
and over 150 employees including dispatchers, mechanics, and
administrative staff.
By providing safe, affordable, and reliable transportation to our
rural communities many of our passengers have access to services that
they may not have otherwise had. Our aging population, disabled
community, and low-income households have additional transportation
options for accessing things like, medical appointments, employment,
shopping, and social events where transportation is regularly cited as
a major barrier.
Arrowhead Transit has been working hard with Minnesota's Office of
Transit and Active Transportation (OTAT) to identify and address any
transportation needs in our area and are involved with two of our
Regional Transportation Coordinating Councils (RTCCs) to collaborate
with other transportation providers and community partners to explore
new ways to bridge the transportation gaps that still exist in the
rural and deep rural areas of the State. OTAT has also been working
with all the State's transportation providers to start building
connections between the different systems, in hope of eventually
connecting all Minnesotans to the transportation currently available in
other areas.
Arrowhead Transit was also awarded a grant under the FTA's
Innovative Mobility Integration program (IMI) to work on developing a
rural transportation program utilizing local transportation options and
volunteer drivers to provide first and last mile access to existing
transportation services for people outside the transit service areas
utilizing technology for trip planning and integrated payment for the
whole trip. It is our hope that, if successful, we would be able to
utilize this program in additional rural areas across the State.
During the COVID pandemic, Arrowhead Transit, with the support of
OTAT, was able to provide free rides to COVID testing sites, provide
additional transportation to support pop up sites, and offer free
vaccine transportation inside our service areas. We also partnered with
Scenic Rivers Health to offer cost free vaccine transportation options
to deep rural areas around their Eveleth clinic with appointment blocks
reserved just for passengers that wanted to utilize the service.
AEOA's largest community contribution during the pandemic came from
food and meal delivery. AEOA received nearly weekly shipments of fresh
produce, proteins, and dairy products from May of 2020 through May of
2021 through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. Over that time
period we served 95,165 individuals in 35,499 household with over 2.1
million pounds of food by collaborating with over 80 community partners
across our service area. We were able to accomplish a large portion of
this by utilizing the transit buses for food delivery to multiple rural
distribution sites being run by other programs and agencies. To date,
Arrowhead Transit buses delivered 37,805 boxes, school lunch meals,
food shelf deliveries, and 1-day and 7-day shelf stable meal kits
during the Peacetime Emergency.
The overall theme in all of our efforts is working towards
providing access to transportation in as many areas as we can. Access
to services, access to employment, access to social events, access to
transportation. One of the largest barriers we face in rural
transportation is the ability to provide access to rural and deep rural
areas that would not meet classic passenger metrics used to evaluate
the value of a route. We have tried to address this by offering routes
based on a minimum passenger basis. If we have x number of passengers
that request to use the route on the books, then we will send it. While
this provides the basic access to the route, it requires passengers to
recruit their own riders to ensure that the route meets the minimum
passenger requirement and removes the ``reliability'' of the
transportation. If you know the route is always going, then you can
schedule appointments or plan your trip based on the route's
availability. Allotting greater weight to a route that provides access
without having to worry as much about the classic metric of passengers
per hour would be one way that rural transit providers could address
these gaps. I believe that sometimes the need for a route is not
necessarily that there will be a lot of people that will be riding it.
To close out, I would like to share a story about a couple in the
Ely, Minnesota, that experienced their own issue with transportation
gap coverage. We operate a Dial-A-Ride in Ely Monday through Friday
with specific boundaries. I had multiple phone conversations with the
wife that was trying to arrange transportation for her disabled husband
to attend his annual medical appointments. Their home was outside our
service area so we normally would not be able to provide transportation
for them, but the issue she was facing was that the private carriers
also could not provide the transportation they needed due to the trip
to the clinic not being cost effective for the private carriers due to
the distance they would have to travel to pick them up and the relative
shortness of the trip. Identifying transportation options for her
husband was more complicated for her because he required the use of a
wheelchair for his mobility. This meant that there were only a few
services that had the ability to accommodate their transportation
needs. After several conversations with her, she was able to arrange
for his doctor's appointments to be scheduled on one day, and we
diverted our bus to pick them up and bring them home after his
appointments, which is a service we now provide to them annually.
Unfortunately, most of these types of requests cannot be resolved in
this way. In many situations people are forced to move from their homes
to allow access transit services or pay much higher rates for
specialized transportation from private companies.
This is just one example where improved access could help those in
rural and deep rural areas, especially those with special
transportation needs, and a greater emphasis on access to
transportation or specialized routes designed just to improve access to
transportation would be immensely helpful for filling some of the gaps
in rural transportation.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF KENDRA MCGEADY
Director of Transit, Pelivan Transit, Big Cabin, Oklahoma
June 8, 2021
Subcommittee Chair Smith, Ranking Member Rounds, and Members of the
Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community
Development, good afternoon. My name is Kendra McGeady and I am the
Director of Transit for Pelivan Transit and the Northeastern Tribal
Transit Consortium located in northeast Oklahoma. I am thankful to have
the opportunity to discuss rural and tribal transit, the challenges we
face and our opportunities to assist in better meeting the needs of our
riders.
Pelivan Transit has been in operation for 35 years. We provide on-
demand and demand response transit services to seven counties, covering
4,466 square miles with a fleet of 61 vehicles, including minivans,
commutes, and cutaway with seating for 4 to 12 passengers. Of those
vehicles, more than half are past their useful life but are mechanics
do an excellent job of maintaining our fleet and keeping them on the
road. We serve a population of more than 257,000. Our operation is
housed in Big Cabin, and includes a full service maintenance facility
and one call/one click mobility management center from which we
dispatch all of our operations. We travel approximately 882,000 revenue
miles a year, completing 149,000 trips to health care, social service,
employment, education, shopping, and other life necessity appointments
for our most vulnerable populations including elderly and disabled
persons.
As a rural transit provider, we encounter obstacles daily due to a
lack of adequate funding, diminished staff, aging fleets, as well as
infrastructure issues such as under maintained roadways and
insufficient broadband. The most difficult obstacle remains securing
local match, which is required of all 5311 operators.
The upcoming reauthorization of the FAST Act will provide an
opportunity to develop solutions to many of the challenges we
experience. Adjusting our ability to sell vehicles after their useful
life would allow Section 5311 and 5310 recipients to sell capital
assets at market value and provide the opportunity to increase local
match money and reinvest in our systems. Local match has always been an
issue and in a postpandemic world has become an even bigger challenge
as communities face revenue shortfalls as a result of economic slumps
associated with COVID. I very much appreciate the leadership of
Senators Smith and Rounds with their cosponsored Investments in Rural
Transit Act of 2021, which seeks to increase local share flexibility
for systems like Pelivan.
In an effort to manage some of the above issues, we implemented
successful and innovative partnerships with our fellow transit agencies
to provide more accessible and equitable transportation to the
residents of Oklahoma including veteran-specific programs and a
regional on-demand afterhours ADA service funded through USDOT
competitive grant programs.
The competitive grants offered by the DOT are vital to rural and
small city operators who wish to offer mobility options to the
communities they serve but are often out of reach due to larger, better
financed operations being included in the same applicant pool.
Rural transit operators like Pelivan are not simply scaled down
versions of transit operations in major cities. The geography and
demographics in rural America have forced many rural operations to
think regionally as employment, health care, retail, and educational
opportunities take a similar approach. The result of this is increasing
miles for every trip, hence the need for safe, reliable capital to
transport.
Rural providers follow strict safety protocols as regulated by
Federal requirements and our State DOT's which enforce maintaining a
state of good repair for all capital assets. National safety records of
rural providers, demonstrate these measures are effective. The
Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA), of which I am a
board member, regularly collects data that confirms the effectiveness
of these measures.
Located in the heart of Indian Country, Pelivan Transit provides
contracted transit services to the Cherokee Nation, and Northeast
Tribal Transit Consortium consisting of the nine tribes of Ottawa
County. Tribal ridership in a normal fiscal year is just over 47,000
completed trips serving a population of over 196,000. Commuter routes
have been established providing transportation to and from native-owned
and operated places of employment and medical facilities.
We hope that we can convey to you today our experiences, both good
and bad, and share ideas of how we might form a more efficient,
equitable public transit system for individuals residing in rural
America. I thank each of you again for the opportunity and for your
interest in the current state and future of rural and tribal transit.
Rural Transit and the COVID-19 Pandemic
The past year of operations have been far different than anything
we have seen before, with no shortage of challenges. Without the
assistance of the $2.8 million in CARES Act funds we would not have
survived the pandemic and its crushing loss of ridership, contractual
services and local match. CARES Act funds and the zero match
requirement were lifesaving, allowing us to maintain effective,
reliable services for those 100 percent transit dependent individuals
who continued to need transportation. The ability to move operational
and administrative dollars around freely without the usual restrictions
ensured the survival of hundreds of systems across the Nation. During
the pandemic, we saw our ridership drop by 68 percent. Today, as our
State's reopening is well underway, we have seen a steady increase in
our ridership due to the essential nature of our trips.
Continued flexibility in funding would hugely benefit rural
operators. While we understand that 100 percent reimbursable funding on
a yearly basis may be out of reach, there are ways to ease these
chronic operational burdens. For example, agencies often struggle to
meet the 50 percent match required for operational expenditures.
Lowering the match ratio to the same 20 percent required for capital
expenditures could make a life-saving difference to smaller transit
agencies.
Of the $2.8 million in CARES Act funds received by Pelivan, we have
utilized just under half maintaining operations and salaries over the
past year. Rural transit operators have had to be thoughtful in their
evaluation of how to best stretch the dollars to reduce the local match
requirement. As the COVID pandemic has put unforeseen fiscal stress on
the communities we serve, rural providers understand that an increase
in contractual funding with our communities is unlikely in the next 3
years. Thus we have to very carefully decide the best use of our
multiple funding streams as move toward a still uncertain future.
At Pelivan, we have chosen to alternate between CARES Act and our
normal Section 5311 reimbursements on a quarterly basis. This will
allow us to reduce our yearly local match obligation by 50 percent
while we allow our communities enough time to recover, thus enabling us
to survive on the local match we collect at the prepandemic level. This
process will allow us the time to plan and invest in our sustainable
futures and find ways in which to efficiently meet the urgent needs of
our riders. The implementation of innovative services and technologies
during the next 3 years will assist our community's commitment to
providing the local match we rely on and boost the transit services we
provide making them more flexible and attractive to communities.
Partnerships Are Vital
The relationship between rural and tribal providers and the
communities we serve runs far deeper than many realize.
Rural systems work closely with critical care treatment providers
often beginning pick-ups as early as 3:30 a.m., hours before our
official service hours begin. Dialysis clinics work closely with
providers to craft schedules for patients. For an average rural system,
State Medicaid programs can count for up to 50 percent of all completed
trips and provide up to 90 percent of their local match.
We form critical partnerships with local and metro hospitals
providing small, underserved communities with access to the metro areas
and the treatment offered.
With service areas spanning thousands of miles, lack of adequate
funding and a need for innovative services, Pelivan has spent the past
few years forming meaningful, regional partnerships with our bordering
transit agencies in an effort to better meet the needs of our riders.
For example, the Veterans Ride Connect project is a consortium of
six rural and tribal providers who partnered to 10 years ago to secure
funding to establish a one call/one click mobility center to book trips
through a central location to provide veteran trips across 29 counties
covering 23,000 square miles. Veterans, together with senior citizens,
developmentally disabled and those living below the poverty line, are
considered our most vulnerable demographics. We determined that working
regionally was the solution to this problem. With pooled resources, the
providers successfully applied for over one million dollars in grants
to secure the scheduling software needed to establish the call center.
Since 2016, the VRC has successfully completed 72,000 discounted trips
to veterans in need of nonemergency, critical care and nutritional
needs. The next step for the VRC is incorporate mental health services
into the allowable trips.
Since 2019, Jack C. Montgomery Veterans Hospital has paid for
$27,000 worth of nonemergency medical trips as part of the project.
In an effort to offer more accessible, inclusive and spontaneous
service, we created the PICK Transportation project which launched last
week. Four providers focused on a collective need--in this case more
flexibility in scheduling and additional service hours--and pooled our
resources and applied for a Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grant
through the USDOT. Amongst competition from larger systems, we were
delighted to hear that we had been fully funded receiving $1.5 million
in Federal investment to implement the Nation's first regional on-
demand rural on-demand transportation system.
While innovative and forward thinking, this project was a necessity
as securing the local match from rural systems on a project this size
is far more challenging than that for major city systems, our
competition for many of the Federal grant opportunities.
The competitive grants offered by the DOT are vital to rural and
small city operators who wish to offer mobility options to the
communities they serve but are often times out of reach due to larger,
better financed, better staffed operations being included in the same
applicant pool. The PICK grant took myself and our team more than a
year to write as we have no staff dedicated to seeking out and making
application for competitive and discretionary grants. As transit
directors, this responsibility falls on us--in addition to operating
our daily systems.
Working together with our global technology partner, Routematch by
UBER, PICK Transportation created an afterhours, on-demand transit
system that operates in a 22,000 square mile area, covering 21 rural
communities across eastern Oklahoma. The 41 vehicle fleet is fully
compliant with American with Disabilities Act, and is the only curb-to-
curb, afterhours rural public transit system in the Nation offering
service to nonambulatory persons. This project effectively offers
individuals with ambulatory needs the time flexible ability to travel
to and from their homes. They no longer need to schedule all of their
medical appointments, trips to the grocery store or social outings 3
days in advance or before last call at 3:30 p.m. The on-demand system
allows for more personal control over the scheduling of their own life
needs and fosters self-confidence and dignity among a vulnerable
population.
The PICK project in just a week's time has already secured
partnerships with local hospitals to meet afterhours discharge need,
flexibility in MRI and CSCAN scheduling and allowing for family and
friends to visit patients without taking time off work.
These projects are good examples of coordination, and are scalable
to fit the needs of both larger and smaller service areas. Innovative
partnerships and services can easily be born in rural and tribal
transit and spread throughout larger systems. Innovative services do
not need to be owned by large systems.
In additional to the above mentioned partnerships, we also work
closely with farmer's markets, health fairs and nutritional programs
that help support healthy individuals.
The Day-to-Day Rural Transit Reality
Employment routes are a large piece of the Pelivan operation.
Partnering with Grand Lake Mental Health, we transport individuals who
utilize the services to and from appointments including counseling,
medical, and nutrition providing an estimated 70,000 trips per year to
this project. Since COVID struck, this operation has been suspended
causing a significant loss in contractual revenue for Pelivan. Without
the assistance of the CARES Act funds, our very existence would thus
have been threatened.
Pelivan Transit partners with Home of Hope, Inc., a nonprofit that
provides services to adults with disabilities, transporting 72 clients
to and from jobs through employment routes established in three
communities. Since it's implementation, more than 37 adults with
disabilities have been able to secure and maintain gainful employment.
After more than a year on hiatus I am proud to say these routes resumed
operations last week.
Rural providers are often part of the corrections reintegration
process, as well. Pelivan partners with the Oklahoma Department of
Corrections transporting medium security inmates who have achieved
trustee status to and from their places of employment prior to their
release. Currently we transport nearly 200 inmates to and from
employment 5 days a week.
In an economy desperate to rebuild, rural providers can be
instrumental in transporting a rural workforce to urban employment
opportunities.
The same is true for tribal or 5311c operations. We understand the
need for reliable transportation for tribal citizens, in particular
tribal elders, many of whom are hindered by poverty and in dire need of
transport to quality of life appointments, whether it be critical care
treatment or an unexpected trip to the grocery store so often out of
reach for certain demographics.
As a transit provider for the Cherokee Nation, we have created
commuter routes which run through four communities, three times a day,
connecting with partnering transit agencies who also serve the Cherokee
Nation dropping off at tribally owned medical facilities and places of
employment. Once again the regional approach taken by the tribal
providers in our area has created an affordable, reliable, and safe
option for those in need of transportation.
The Northeast Oklahoma Tribal Transit Consortium includes Eastern
Shawnee, Miami, Modoc, Ottawa, Peoria, Quapaw, Seneca-Cayuga, Shawnee,
and Wyandotte Tribes of Oklahoma. It is a driving economic engine in
northeast Oklahoma, and is fully integrated into the rural operation.
The challenges that face rural tribal transit operators are
different than that of 5311s.
With less restrictive requirements for direct recipients, all
Federal dollars are 100 percent reimbursable. However, there is no
avenue for capital replacement or enhancement specific to 5311c
operations such as is available to 5311 and 5307 agencies. A designated
capital pool grant program for tribal operations would elevate the
depletion of Federal dollars that must be used for capital needs.
Equitable access to FTA funding programs would assist in providing
safe, reliable transit to tribal citizens.
In closing, I hope that I have conveyed to you today the essential
nature of rural and tribal transit. I thank you again for the
opportunity and for your interest in the work we do to provide a better
quality of life to those we serve.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF BARBARA CLINE
Executive Director, Prairie Hills Transit, Prairie Hills Transit,
Spearfish, South Dakota
June 8, 2021
Subcommittee Chair Smith, Ranking Subcommittee Member Rounds, and
Members of the Subcommittee and full Committee, My name is Barb Cline
and I have been the Executive Director of Prairie Hills Transit for all
of its 31 years. Prairie Hills Transit began service using the old
green van in the back parking lot as a half-day transportation service
for older adults in the Spearfish community.
I would like to sincerely thank you for supporting community and
public transit in rural America, and for holding this important
hearing. The challenges of providing transportation in rural and small-
urban communities are unique and we rely on the support of this
Subcommittee to assist us in this important mission.
Today, Prairie Hills Transit operates in a 16,500 square-mile area
of western South Dakota bordering the States of Nebraska, North Dakota,
and Wyoming. Using 50 vehicles, our staff of 65 provide public
transportation that includes nonemergency medical transportation in
nine counties and 15 small communities that vary is size from rural to
frontier. Comparatively our ridership fell from 125,294 in 2019 to
67,333 in 2020. Our operation is funded through Section 5311 and relies
heavily on city, county, and the State for local share. I would urge
you to look closely at local share flexibility for rural transit
systems--something I know Senators Smith and Rounds have committed to
with their cosponsored Investments in Rural Transit Act of 2021.
An important factor for any rural transit system is adequate
capital investment. When the useful life and age of our vehicles
require replacement we are consistently looking at our inventory to
make certain that our data is ready to apply for Capital and
Discretionary awards. Approximately 72 percent of revenue vehicles are
in a State of Good Repair.
In addition to vehicles, rural transit systems like mine need to
house their vehicles in garages that help protect them from the extreme
weather conditions we are subjected to in South Dakota. With our
expansive service area, we need six buildings that allow us a place to
clean and store our fleet, with most having a small office area and
restroom for our drivers. Our main multimodel facility in Spearfish
serves as a Jefferson Lines intercity bus depot, serves as our primary
one-call center, houses a full maintenance shop, administration offices
and offers a licensed childcare center for 41 children.
More than anything else, systems like Prairie Hills Transit need
predictable, sustainable, and increased growth in the FTA Section 5311
funding in the reauthorization of the FAST Act. The ability and
flexibility to continue using these Section 5339 funds for capital
assistance is also imperative. For Prairie Hills Transit our ability to
use Section 5310 dollars for maintenance and repairs has been of
significant value and cost savings. Because we have our own mechanic
and shop we have been able to stretch the dollars we receive even
further.
Rural transit systems are all unique, and operate quite differently
from the traditional public transit operations in our Nation's biggest
cities. Collectively, we make sure people get to work, to the doctor,
to childcare, school, dialysis, or even home after being discharged
from the hospital. This morning I met with the largest regional
hospital in Western South Dakota to discuss Prairie Hills Transit's
role in creating successful health care outcomes. At noon, my team met
to discuss the vital role our drivers and vehicles play in making sure
veterans living in highly rural counties have access to their health
care appointments that are sometimes several hundred miles away. This
afternoon I'll drive 200 miles to meet with an advisory committee who
wants to begin new service in their community.
My testimony draws on the significant experience I have in leading
Prairie Hills Transit, and as the President of the Community
Transportation Association of America's (CTAA) Board of Directors,
which provides training, certification, resources and advocates on
behalf of rural and tribal transit agencies across the Nation. I speak
today not only for myself and other transit professionals, but most
importantly for our communities and the residents who rely on our
services who without us would have no voice. I speak for the dialysis
patients who remain independent and in their homes because of our
services. I speak for the mom who was able to get a higher paying job
to support her family but had no way to get her children from daycare
to school in the morning or from school to daycare in the afternoon
without public transportation. I speak for the woman who travels over
50 miles one way to see her husband of 65 years in a nursing home
because she can no longer care for him in their home and transportation
makes that possible.
I provide my testimony today on the unique challenges of rural
transit with regard to access to capital, system development in very
small rural communities, vast distances traveled, and the difficulties
of leveraging consistent financial support to develop and maintain
vital transportation services. For many people, rural transit is not a
choice but rather an inevitable decision made because they have no
other means to get where they need to go. I'm here because without
passionate advocacy built on years of experience, public transit in our
rural areas could easily become lost or pushed aside because it just
wasn't big enough to worry about.
This is the third time I have had the privilege of testifying
before this Committee and I hope each time I've left a footprint of who
and what public transit means to our rural communities. To help rural
transit providers continue to innovate and provide services that meet
the needs of our communities, I'd like to offer five top policy
priorities for your consideration.
Increased Section 5339 bus and bus facility investment,
with specific set-asides for rural public transit operations,
to allow these agencies to replace aging vehicle fleets, tap
new zero-emission vehicle technology and build needed transit
facilities.
Increased local share flexibility for rural transit
operators
Right-sized regulations that take into account the size and
budgets of smaller operators.
Consistent growth in Section 5311 funding throughout the
life of the FAST Act's successor.
Consideration for rural transit systems in all of the new
programs under review to improve transit efficiency, target
services for areas of persistent poverty, provide technical
assistance and coordinate public transit with health care.
From my system's beginning--operating a van 4 hours per day--we
have become one of the foremost rural systems in the Nation. We
realized early that transportation most certainly was going to continue
to grow and that we always wanted to stay a project ahead of doing the
same thing we'd always done. Our initial funding was for senior
transportation but it quickly grew to serve the general public because
of the need and demand. Other communities, local elected officials and
economic development groups in our expansive service area realized that
we provide safe, efficient service and wanted to use it. That's the
basis of the coordinated model that has served so many rural public
transit systems well.
To continue to grow and adapt our service at Prairie Hills Transit,
we have applied for and won many grants to improve our technology,
equipment safety, and improve local partnerships. For smaller rural
systems this is often very challenging because of time required to
develop it, the significant technical knowledge required to complete
and apply for it and the small staff putting it together between their
other duties.
Prairie hills Transit has been a subrecipient of a HRTG (Highly
Rural Transportation Grant) for several years operating in highly rural
counties of South Dakota together with our partners at River Cities
Transit in our State capital of Pierre. Our service provides cost-free
transportation for Veterans to medical appointments from their homes to
the appointment location. We have also pursued Memorandum of Agreements
with six Wyoming agencies to offer their veterans the same opportunity.
For transit agencies in both States, as well as our veterans, this is
an amazing service and also allows additional funding from other
resources to help support public transportation systems providing the
service.
Ten years ago, we were approached by Regional Health (now Monument
Health) with a request to contract with them to provide discharge
transportation for them from Rapid City to the patient's destination.
This agreement expanded upon already existing contracts with the
majority of their other hospitals, nursing homes, assisted livings, and
medical clinics. This operation has really served to expand health care
connectivity in much of western South Dakota. Additionally, it has
served as a way to provide additional services for the many other
independent hospital and varied health care entities needing
transportation for residents/patients.
The past 15 months with the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged rural
transit operators. Prairie Hills Transit was grateful to receive $2.2
million from the CARES Act, which we've used to keep our operations
running and employees paid. We did not let go of a single employee
during the pandemic, which is really helping us as demand for transit
ramps back up (we're up to more than 80 percent of pre-COVID levels).
Prairie Hills Transit, under the guidance of our partners as the
South Dakota Department of Transportation, has consistently
consolidated existing transportation systems from communities needing
additional support. We continue to network with smaller communities as
service needs are defined and we are able to financially support the
service. For example, most recently we assumed existing transportation
in Lemmon, have contracted with the Bennett County Hospital and Nursing
Home in Martin, and are working toward revitalized service in Edgemont.
For both Martin and Edgemont, we have applied for grants to help
through both RTAP and AARP. While we know how to stretch a shoestring
transit budget, we also know that increased Section 5311 investment
will be the best way we can truly guarantee continue support to these
communities who have significant elderly and minority populations.
Again, it's important to note that even if Section 5311 funds are
available the local share needed in these smaller communities can be
very difficult to raise.
In closing I'd like to take the dollars and cents out of this
testimony and bring it back to the people--your constituents. Transit
systems in rural America take challenges and turn them into
opportunities because we see the value of mobility every single day. It
might be a medical appointment for a resident who hasn't left her home
in weeks, it might be the dazzling smile a youngster with Down syndrome
gives the driver that picks them up for school each day, or it could be
a driver dropping a lanyard for the tooth fairy off to the child's home
after his shift is over because he knows how important it is to that
child (and the tooth fairy). None of us can place a value on these
trips that public transportation performs every day, but those of us
who sit in my seat know they are priceless each and every day.
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR CRAPO
FROM BRANDON NURMI
Q.1. Do you agree that support for transit in rural States and
areas is an essential part of the transit portion of surface
transportation reauthorization, and that we need more
investment in our rural transit systems?
A.1. I would absolutely agree with that assessment. Public
transit is a staple for low income, senior, and disabled
communities to allow access to employment, medical
appointments, and community inclusion as well as providing the
bridge between rural communities and the essential services
that may only be available in urbanized areas.
Arrowhead Transit currently has a service area that covers
24,470 sq. miles or 28.1 percent of Minnesota. Of this area we
are only able to provide consistent service (which I would
define as service that is reliably available between 1 and 7
days a week) to approximately 10 percent of that area. Further
expansion of transportation services will require a greater
investment in all areas of public transit including
infrastructure (facilities, maintenance, and rolling stock/
vehicles) technology (dispatching software, communications that
work in deep rural areas, electronic payment options, etc.) and
additional service options (new routes). Current services
provided are already stretched as far out as they can be while
also maintaining a reasonable level of availability to as many
passengers as can be accommodated.
Rural Transit is the backbone for most sustainable
transportation solutions in any rural area, just as urban
transit is the backbone for transportation solutions in
urbanized areas and will need increased investment to support
new innovative transportation solutions and services, and to
provide transportation options to the millions of unserved and
underserved rural community members across the country.
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RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR DAINES
FROM BRANDON NURMI
Q.1. Efficient and effective transit programs are critical in
rural States like Montana--and it's not just subways like
people see in big cities. Busses and vans are a lifeline for
folks without cars to get to and from work or for seniors and
the disabled to get to doctors' appointments or to pharmacies
to get lifesaving medications.
Do you agree that an efficient and effective but fiscally
responsible Federal transit program is critical for rural
States and communities?
A.1. I would absolutely agree that efficient and effective
transportation programs are crucial at both the Federal and
State levels to provide transportation access for as many
people as possible to the services that so many need, and to
support community inclusion for those without reliable means of
transportation. While I believe that all public programs should
have a high level of fiscal responsibility, I also believe that
the process should not become more important than the product.
Q.2. One thing I hear constantly when talking with various
groups is the onerous regulatory and reporting requirements
from FTA. In some cases, this has resulted in additional staff
being needed just to deal with meeting these requirement. This
is obviously burdensome for a rural community that may not have
the resources needed to bring on additional staff.
Do you agree that surface transportation reauthorization
should reduce complexities and onerous requirements so that
communities are better able to put these dollars to work?
A.2. To touch for a second on the initial question in
combination with this one, we absolutely need a process to
ensure that public funds are properly allocated and that all
contracts involve a fair and equitable process for selection,
but the application of these processes to every tiny aspect of
transit operation has massively prioritized the process of
spending public dollars over the delivery of the public
services these dollars were meant to provide. The onerous
practice of procurement and contract development are working
counter to the intended desire to ensure fiscally responsible
decision making by requiring a significant increase of fixed
costs that are associated with the need for specialized
personnel to navigate the multiple steps required just to order
(as an example) a tire balancing machine for our maintenance
department. These requirements increase the overall cost of
that machine to the Federal Government by a significant margin
and can be exponentially applied to all purchases, services,
assets, and overhead cost that will spend >$10,000 over the
course of an entire contract period. Just this year, Arrowhead
Transit made the decision to hire a Procurement Specialist
because the amount of employee hours allocated to the
procurement process had begun impacting the other duties of our
AP/AR staff. More hours were spent on procurement then was
spent on payroll, even with procurement duties split between
three different employee positions.
These requirements are especially onerous for smaller rural
transit systems that do not have the funding, staff, or time to
perform these endless tasks for so many of their essential
operational needs. It can put these systems in a position of
delaying needed expenditures that may even directly impact
their delivery of services or run the risk of being sanctioned
for not following procurement procedures and possibly put their
funding at risk.
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RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR CRAPO
FROM KENDRA MCGEADY
Q.1. Do you agree that support for transit in rural States and
areas is an essential part of the transit portion of surface
transportation reauthorization, and that we need more
investment in our rural transit systems?
A.1. Yes. Additional support to rural transit systems will
enable us to provide the quality of life service that we
currently do, while also allowing us to expand our systems and
meet the constantly growing need for longer distance trips. As
our population ages and more senior citizens migrate to rural
areas, the additional funding is vital in providing access to
health care facilities and other essential services often
located hundreds of miles away.
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RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR DAINES
FROM KENDRA MCGEADY
Q.1. Efficient and effective transit programs are critical in
rural States like Montana--and it's not just subways like
people see in big cities. Busses and vans are a lifeline for
folks without cars to get to and from work or for seniors and
the disabled to get to doctors' appointments or to pharmacies
to get lifesaving medications.
Do you agree that an efficient and effective but fiscally
responsible Federal transit program is critical for rural
States and communities?
A.1. Yes. Rural transit systems are a lifeline to many in the
communities we serve. We are typically the sole provider of
transportation. Set aside grant programs specific for capital
needs for rural providers would allow rural systems to compete
on a level playing field for replacement of vehicles and
expansion of service opportunities that would allow us to
continue to provide these quality of life trips. With health
care taking a more regional approach in many States, trips to
and from facilities can be great distances. Health care trips
often account for up to 50 percent of all trips provided in
rural systems. Efficient Federal programs that provide the
necessary funding to ensure that we can offer these trips and
other services are now more vital than ever. Additional funding
will allow for investment in capital to provide safe, reliable
trips and technology to create more efficient systems for
providers.
Q.2. One thing I hear constantly when talking with various
groups is the onerous regulatory and reporting requirements
from FTA. In some cases, this has resulted in additional staff
being needed just to deal with meeting these requirement. This
is obviously burdensome for a rural community that may not have
the resources needed to bring on additional staff.
Do you agree that surface transportation reauthorization
should reduce complexities and onerous requirements so that
communities are better able to put these dollars to work?
A.2. Yes. The regulatory burden for the relative risk requires
disproportionate oversight for the amount of funding systems
receive. With limited staff, the added requirements pull
resources from already underfunded operations. Programs should
be administered in the least burdensome and most flexible way.
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RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR CRAPO
FROM BARBARA CLINE
Q.1. Do you agree that support for transit in rural States and
areas is an essential part of the transit portion of surface
transportation reauthorization, and that we need more
investment in our rural transit systems?
A.1. I wholeheartedly agree that transit support in rural
States and areas is essential to the transit portion of
reauthorization because of the vital role available and
accessible transportation plays in retention of the vulnerable
population in these States. Additional investment in these
rural transit systems, and the commitment to support
transportation at the financial level needed, would show
quantification of services as they increase and equality of
wage and benefit packages that would better balance our ability
to attract and retain a trained workforce.
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RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR DAINES
FROM BARBARA CLINE
Q.1. Efficient and effective transit programs are critical in
rural States like Montana--and it's not just subways like
people see in big cities. Busses and vans are a lifeline for
folks without cars to get to and from work or for seniors and
the disabled to get to doctors' appointments or to pharmacies
to get lifesaving medications.
A.1. I couldn't agree with you more. Having been the founding
director of Prairie Hills Transit 31 years ago, I see and
understand the challenges you have mentioned. Additionally we
recognize the problem a working parent may have in getting
their children to and from school, the veteran who lives in a
highly rural county and needs medical transportation. We find
the health care community has significant challenges with
dialysis trips for patients, discharges from hospitals for
individuals without vehicles, or even follow up appointments
from hospital stays. Access to care is vital, arguably more so
in small rural areas.
Q.2. Do you agree that an efficient and effective but fiscally
responsible Federal transit program is critical for rural
States and communities?
A.2. I do agree that a fiscally responsible Federal transit
program is a number one priority. In rural States and small
communities, we know that employees often serve in
multiposition jobs. In fact in South Dakota, many of the
transit systems like Prairie Hills Transit have coordinated and
consolidated in order to maintain a higher level of
administration and oversight of Local, State and Federal
compliance. Often times the shoestring approach of stretching
our dollars too far can be problematic and challenging.
Q.3. One thing I hear constantly when talking with various
groups is the onerous regulatory and reporting requirements
from FTA. In some cases, this has resulted in additional staff
being needed just to deal with meeting these requirement. This
is obviously burdensome for a rural community that may not have
the resources needed to bring on additional staff.
A.3. The regulatory and reporting requirements have continued
to increase for both transportation systems and for the
Department of Transportation. Many times the one size fits all
approach is used and one size never fits all. There is a
difference between regulation and oversight. Too often in rural
States, systems find themselves overwhelmed and overregulated,
to the level of frustration that too much time and information
doesn't always produce a result that seems prudent.
Q.4. Do you agree that surface transportation reauthorization
should reduce complexities and onerous requirements so that
communities are better able to put these dollars to work?
A.4. I definitely think that transportation systems would
totally agree that putting our dollars back into providing
service is why we're all here. Sitting behind a desk and
pushing paper isn't giving our riders additional services they
could all use. It doesn't add hours of service, days of service
or even an extra day of trips to the specialty doctors 50 miles
away.