SARASOTA COUNTY GOVERNMENT CITIZENS ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION MINUTES Thursday, October 19, 2017 Gulf Gate Library Meeting Room A

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1 Gulf Gate Library Meeting Room A Committee Members Present Dorothy Hudson, Chair Scott Whiterell Ronald Collins Raquel Cummings SCAT Personnel Present Rob Lewis, Interim Director Kendra Keiderling, Marketing, Outreach & Customer Service Lauren Tominelli, Marketing, Outreach & Customer Service Gary Speidel, ParaTransit Manager Jon Russo, Maintenance Manager Rick Ferris, Fixed Route Operation Manager FDOT & MPO Present Members of the Public Lee Wilkes Thelma Hightower Cindy Edlund Committee Members Absent Frederic Bigio, Vice Chair Merlin Shirk Vacant Vacant STAR Student SCAT Personnel Absent Sarah Blanchard, Senior Planner Mary Goldaraz, Procurement Benjamin Pearl, Safety & Security FDOT & MPO Absent Tracy Tronco, FDOT Representative Call Meeting to Order by Chair, Dorothy Hudson, at 2:00 P.M. Introduction of Board and Staff in attendance Open to the Public (please limit to 3-minutes per speaker) Thelma Hightower: Still fighting for a shelter at Walmart & Myrtle Why do we have to come all the way out to Gulf Gate instead somewhere in the city? More people might come if it was more convenient. Weekend schedules. Don t make connections. They re not keeping time schedules. Lauren Tominelli Sometimes it s difficult to get a room downtown. Booked out months in advance is already booked for here. Approval of Agenda for October 19, 2017: Approval of Minutes for July 20, 2017: With Corrections Page 1 of 3

2 Discussion: Rob Lewis, Interim Director: Employee of Sarasota County for 28 years. Permanent job currently is Director of Intergovernmental Relations. Liaison between other cities & counties of the state of Florida, and the federal government at both the legislative and executive branch levels. Rocky Burke retired; they asked me to step in. I have been in and out of SCAT over the years. Both when I was in the Transportation Department; it was one of the departments that was a part of Transportation. Also when I was Executive Director of Planning and Development Services, SCAT was part of that department at that time as well. Personal history: Lived here since Between bachelors and masters degree, was a paratransit driver for Senior Friendship Centers when they were the CTC; What we think of as SCAT Plus; drove old Plymouth high top back loader, not a side loader; plenty of experience in paratransit, but never driven fixed route. Pleasure to serve you, and to serve the county, and to this great staff. I will do this for a short time; they are recruiting for a new director. I will do everything in my power to serve you and this staff and the community while I m in this temporary role. Kendra Keiderling, Marketing Supervisor: Thank you to Miss Hudson for presenting in front of the Board our annual review. She did a great job, they were very thrilled, and they didn t ask any pressing questions. Attended all the local university and college orientations for upcoming year; Did extensive outreach for our World Rowing working closely with them to be prepared for the folks coming to town; had a special route out there. We had some riders, not a lot. World Rowing was very well prepared with their own transportation; we were there as back up. Good advertisement for us, and we were prepared for the event. Breeze is now operating from 10 am to 10 pm. We ve been busy on the Key as well, letting everyone know the new hours. Still moving forward through the end of year funded. Liberty pass. Increase started October 1 st to $20. Downtown SCAT, Admin at SCAT, Health Department downtown, and Health Department in R.L. Anderson are currently selling our Liberty passes. That is the extent of the sales. If churches want to give out passes to different folks, they can pre-purchase single ride tickets. They can no longer purchase the actual Liberty pass because of restrictions, and we re not knowing who s getting them, who they re going to, procedures aren t followed correctly when they are out of SCAT s hands. Those are the 4 locations currently selling Liberty passes. Good news is Health Department is open 8-5 and they re not closed for lunch. Wednesdays, we have extended hours. Upcoming events that are important for everyone to know about The Age Friendly Festival and this is a Patterson Foundation festival they created here in Florida, and this is the first in the country, and it s for all ages. There s going to be interactive activities, thousands of vendors, lots of people. 9-5 on Saturday, October 28 th. SCAT will be there presenting; we ll have a bus there. FDOT is partnering with SCAT to have a Golden Event at the Friendship Center on November 7 th off Mound Street. We ll Page 2 of 3

3 have different tables there, ITN will be there, Bicycle Safety will be there. Do some presentations and then have a raffle for 10 different folks that can go to lunch. We ll hop on a bus and go to a local restaurant for lunch. Starts at 9 and will probably go to 1 or 1:30 after lunch. Siesta Key Sand Crystal Classics are coming up as well. We promote our Route 11 for folks to park off the Key and then to get on the Key. They can take the Breeze once they re on the Key. Englewood Boat Races. We will not be participating as far as our buses are concerned, but we will present at the event. The other piece is the Flamingo. Launching next June, next summer. Tomorrow we re taking a training class. Most of our Point of Sale machines are installed on our buses. Excited about moving forward with the Flamingo card and trying to do away with the paper passes and moving toward the plastic and/or Smart phone technology. Question about the Health Department Is that only for existing customers? No, they can actually get qualified at any of the four locations. And Liberty pass program is not going away next year, just the name. The program will continue as a disadvantage type pass, we just don t have a name for it yet. It will still be $20, and all they will need to show is a valid ID and a qualifier, either a SNAP card, a Medicaid card or a shelter letter. Those three qualifiers will stay in place. Gary Speidel, Paratransit Manager: Siesta Key Breeze. For July, did 25,500 passengers. As expected, declined in August down to 14,000 passengers. In September because of going back to school and the hurricane, and other factors surrounding the hurricane, we were only at 5200 passengers. In the process of developing the new request for a proposal. Hopefully getting it together and underway for a March 1 st start up. Under our current contract, remember this is a pilot program, we can go month-to-month starting in March for six months only. We re preparing well in advance so we can have a smooth transition to a regular three (3) year, to one (1) year option type of contract. The evacuations that we did for persons with special needs. Very active on the paratransit side as we helped support the Board of Education. We did 214 trips. We had the 2 shelters one in North Port and one in Sarasota. Did very well with that; got everyone transported safely. Moving on to the paratransit. The Transportation Disadvantaged Commission in Tallahassee awarded the county this year $1.3 million for the Transportation Disadvantage Program. That is up from $1.04 million the prior year. That will account for approximately 25% of the overall SCAT budget. The other 3% is our Title 3 and our veterans. Our statistics for paratransit. Our ridership - we re seeing a decrease. July was approximately the same. August because of one working day, Monday through Friday. We dropped a little bit more passengers than normal. September of course was a wash out for us. Reduced ridership before the storm and reduced ridership after the storm until people got back on their feet again. Going to affect our trips per revenue hour. We scheduled better in August so that gave us better higher trips per revenue hour. September went down because of less ridership. On time performance has also decreased. Not meeting the level, it needs to meet. A corrective action plan was requested, and that plan is being put into action right now. There will be a follow-up meeting Tuesday with the owner of the company, coming from Missouri to discuss the seriousness of how we re operating. Continuing with hiring. Continual training with our certified pass program. Constant safety reminders. Daily and monthly safety meetings. Assigned each manager each month to do a safety theme to keep everybody s mind on safety first. Page 3 of 3

4 Update on air conditioning on the veterans bus. Air conditioning is checked every day, and I get the readings every single day to make sure that the air conditioning is at the comfort level it needs to be. Had the vice president of maintenance come to the location to take a look at those 5 vehicles. Air conditioning in those vehicles were working fine. However, there s a valve for the heat that goes to the back of the bus, and that valve needed to be turned off for summer. Rick Ferris, for Planning: We will review coverage of Bahia Vista off season in April Route 9, Jacaranda, North Port. We re not going to run #9 on Saturday, but we ll run the #1713 on Saturday. Same service on Saturday as on Sunday. Bus goes all the way down to North Port City Hall. Hourly service instead of half hour service. Route 15 will end at the Pavilion on Saturdays. Doing a current loop up 41 and down Proctor. Not productive so we re eliminating that portion on Saturdays. The #1713 will eliminate the #17 on Saturdays. The #1713 will be servicing the Venice Train Depot on Saturday. The #28 route will be removed on Saturday due to lack of ridership. We won t have to staff the office in North Port on Saturday, and we will be able to run North Port operations for the weekend from Sarasota. Route #3 Sarasota Springs/Pinecraft to Downtown: Begin service at 6:08 am and end at 7:03 pm; eliminating the 5:50 am & 6:14 am runs. The 11S: Reduce hours on Sunday; eliminating 8:15 am. - 8:55 am. and eliminating 8:15 PM 9:00 pm. Discontinue from Southgate to Downtown Sarasota. 15S: Eliminating early morning runs at 6:04 am. 8:00 am. due to low ridership. Route 30: Going to eliminate the late trips 9:31 pm & 10:20 pm. Again, no ridership. 99: Begin 5:10 am and 9:47 pm.; Working with Manatee County on some adjustments. That s one of our more productive routes. Englewood #26: Wasn t being productive. Put into suspension. Bringing it back with some changes. Modifying it to cover a different route. Dearborn to Green and back around. Hoping to cover more people from the center of town. Layover at Hosmer. Route 33: Pinecraft/Siesta Key Going to run the same hours we did Monday through Saturday. Very productive run in season. Adjusted #33 to connect with the #15. For efficiencies: #99 Downtown Bradenton adjusting trips and blocks at MCAT request. Route 11: Discontinue running from Southgate to Downtown Sarasota. #14: Going to run from Bee Ridge extension all the way to downtown. Hopefully get the efficiencies up for 2 buses. And not tie that bus up with beach traffic. Page 4 of 4

5 Jon Russo, Maintenance Manager: Maintenance Division is running very smooth. Continuing to maintain the a/c systems with PM s every 30 days. Filters are changed, coils are cleaned, and checked for leaks and functionality. Far fewer problems than in previous years. Currently started heater campaign. As buses come in for their monthly checks, heaters are inspected and hoses checked. Implementing a brake light campaign. Did 1416 replaced 4 of the rear-facing brake lights with strobe lights. Found it to be very effective. It stands out. LED s very bright. One of the biggest issues we ve had over the last several years is rear-end accidents. Ordered 200 lights; 4 per bus. Two on top and 2 on lower portion. Bus attendants continue to keep buses clean. Buses get soiled. Driver cordons off the area. Bus may be pulled from service immediately. Customers have to wait for another bus. But we have buses that are pre-tripped every morning and sitting in the yard waiting to go out. Not taking minutes to pre-trip the bus because it was already done. Bus is brought back and secured. Properly treated with antiseptics and agents that will eliminate that contamination. Then bus is put back into service. Safety and well-being of the passengers is our priority, and my cleaners know that, as do the drivers. It s something we discuss at our labor-management meetings, at the staff meetings, leadership meetings we have once a week It s a very big priority. General public deals with enough setbacks throughout their day, we re trying to eliminate as many as we can. Have 20 new buses in service. Average age is now 3 years. Youngest fleet in the State of Florida. Looking to replace between 3-5 buses next year. Looking at best options. Twelve shelters were put in place past year. Explained the lengthy process for getting a shelter installed. Even stops with just a bench need to be ADA compliant. Contract with Lamar for shelters has ended. County has taken possession 37 of 45 shelters. Working on budget to rehab the shelters. Rest are on private property where the owners won t grant access; Lamar will be taking those shelters down. New RFP (Request for Proposal) is looking for a company to take over advertising for current shelters, and possibly take over the entire shelter operation from start to finish. Cindy Edlund: Thank you to bus operators for being so diligent in pulling up to curb making it easier to get on and off the bus. Downtown transfer station custodial staff is doing a really great job. Could SCAT consider another free ride day for veterans? Adjournment at 3:30 p.m. Page 5 of 5