Thanks. My boss asked me to post requesting input. Its a little tricky for me to post here concerning my place of employment because I tread a thin line. Sometimes I want to respond on transportation threads, but, I fear that it won't be clear that my responses come from me, not from some official position at Chatham Transit Network.
We have a new Executive Director. He is in the process of applying for the various grants that help us run. He wants input about what people in Chatham County think about public transportation...what we currently have, what we might need, do you even know there is public transportation in Chatham County, etc.
We do currently provide transportation across the county for all the things 'fact_er' mentioned. We also provide what we call rural general public rides. These are rides for people that live near or along our routes that want to get somewhere else near or along our routes. For example, if you live in Siler City and want to go to Cole Park to shop, you can call us and make arrangements to ride on our Chapel Hill route. Another example, if you live within 2.5 miles of 15-501 between Pittsboro and Chapel Hill and you have an appointment at UNC, but no medicaid to pay for transportation, you can make arrangements to be taken to UNC hospital. Rural General Public riders pay a small fee to ride along on routes that are subsidized by a complicated formula or other funding sources. As with everything else in the world we have limited resources. We try to do as much as we can for the people of Chatham County with the resources we have. There is always room for improvement. We want input from people in Chatham County concerning what they see as needs.
Rural transportation is a lot trickier than urban transportation. Its difficult to establish the types of routes that one sees in cities and large towns. Geographically, rural areas are more spread out and its a careful balancing act of trying to serve the most people as efficiently as possible. There are pockets of Chatham County in particular that are difficult for us to serve. We try the best we can within our established parameters, which were established with efficiency and cost-effectiveness in mind. Chatham County may never see a system of criss-crossing bus/van routes that serves every citizen in the county, but you also never know what the future may bring.
Now, that said...this is MY response. This is not some official Chatham Transit Network response. I'm hoping to just clarify what it was I was instructed to do. I thought the request was straight forward, apparently it was not. I apologize for any confusion.
Please take this opportunity to send you comments to Dale Olbrich (
d.olbrich@chathamtransit.org) concerning public transportation in Chatham County. Any comment, question, request, etc is welcome. Remember there is a deadline of March 23, 2009.
Thanks,
Allison
