Your DTA Board of Directors met in November to review the 2016 conference and start the wheels rolling for the 2017 conference. We will hold our Fall Conference September 9 th through September 13 th, 2017. Roadeo will be Saturday the 9 th with the Conference starting on the 11 th until noon on the 13 th. We will be having our Conference at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, ND. Our rooms are at the Canad Inn Destination Center. A block of rooms has already been set aside and our rates for the 7 th, 10 th, 11 th and 12 th will be ND State Rates and the 8 th and 9 th will be $139.00 per night. Canad Inn Destination Center s phone number is 701-772-8404. For those of you who are not familiar with Grand Forks, these two entities are connected. Our Roadeo will take place at the Public Works Department parking lot. 1
Vermillion Public Transit provides service seven days per week for Vermillion, SD and the surrounding area. We gave 73,636 rides last year. VPT is overseen by SESDAC, Inc., the local community service provider who supports people with developmental disabilities. 50% of our rides are for people with disabilities, so we are a significant part of the services that SESDAC, Inc. provides. Our service helps these folks to travel around Vermillion independently. Another service we provide is transportation to Sioux Falls. This service is offered Monday through Friday. It is a popular service for medical appointments. We have regular riders who go to dialysis services in Sioux Falls three days per week. Since we consistently go on these three days, we offer a discounted fare to encourage others to go on these days as well. Many more people are using us for trips to and from the airport. International students who are used to using public transit utilize us for shopping and recreation trips as well. In 2002, we began a joint project with the University of South Dakota to start the Safe Ride program. This is a late night service that operates Thursday - Saturday nights to assure people have a way to get a safe ride home from downtown. Most of the riders are students from the university, but the service is open to the public. The program generated 15% of our rides last year. We are a ticket agent for Jefferson Lines. We sell tickets to ride their buses. When we began this in 2007, Jefferson Lines had just lost their bus stop, which was a truck stop 7 miles east of Vermillion along the interstate. We also helped them find another bus stop actually in Vermillion. The bus stops at McDonalds. This has been a win-win for the riders, Jefferson Lines and McDonalds. Riders no longer had to find a way to get the seven miles out of town to the bus stop and the bus is bringing customers to McDonalds. The driver actually calls McDonalds when they are almost there to let them know how many rides there are so that they can start preparing extra food before the bus arrives. VPT will be celebrating its 20 th anniversary this next year. We look forward to many more successful years! This past summer we updated the office with epoxy flooring and new paint! 2
I entered in to the world of public transit when there was no rural transit program, no lift equipped vehicles and there was no ADA program. Being in rural transportation for over forty some odd years, things have changed a great deal. As a graduate from Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, Iowa with an Education Major, life brought me to a different career path. I started my career path as a transit manager and a senior services coordinator for the Town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York. After two years on Long Island New York, I returned to Northwest Iowa to work with Iowa Lake Community College in development of Senior Program under Title III of the Older American Act. With my time at Iowa Lake Community College, one of the programs developed was a senior transportation program for a five-county area. Two years later, the Aging program was granted UMTA16B2 from the Iowa Department of Transportation to start a regional system consisting of nine counties in northwest Iowa. Why me and why rural transit? Iowa Lake Community College hired two individuals first but both decided not to take on the program. My boss at Iowa Lake Community College kidded me into taking on the transportation program because my father owned and operated a trucking company. I think he thought I knew something about transportation. My father dealt with livestock and I was going to deal with humans. It s a great job, I love working with people. With five plain Jane Dodge Vans and an old 48 passenger school bus, regional transit started in Northwest Iowa. I stayed with the program thirty years before I decided to offer my experience and knowledge to others as a consultant. When I left The RIDES program, there were seventy-five vehicles, 80 drivers, and a ridership of 350,000 rides a year. Since that time, I have taken on job duties as a Mobility Manager in Fort Collin, CO., working for the Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization. I also work with the North Central Texas Council of Governments, serving as the transit managers for the Collin County Area Regional Transit program, McKinney, TX. I am a native of Algona, Iowa, widowed at 58 (husband passed away in DeSmet, SD). I have two adult children in Des Moines, Iowa with four grandchildren and two adult step sons in Rapid City, SD with two grandchildren. Why South Dakota? Ask Barb Cline! 3
We Get You Where You Need To Go We ve endured our first taste of blizzard conditions and sub-zero temps. Keeping passengers safe by cancelling or rescheduling trips is not what we want to do in transportation, but is sometimes necessary. We are based in Maddock, ND; a small community in Benson County. We offer demand/ response service to Benson County residents, with scheduled trips to Harvey, Rugby and Devils Lake each week. Twice monthly trips to Bismarck; and monthly trips to Minot and Grand Forks. We offer medical only trips anywhere in ND, by request and if our scheduling allows. We operate Monday Friday 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM. We also pick up Wells County residents for our trips to Minot and Bismarck. See MADDOCK, Page 5 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Registration information will be on our web site soon. Please go to the Dakota Transit Association web site to register drivers and for map information, etc. January 24-25, 2017 Pierre, SD: DEFENSIVE DRIVING: Jan 24--1pm to 5pm MALTREATMENT AWARENESS: Jan 25--8am to noon. Classes will be held at River Cities Public Transit facility: 1600 E. Dakota Avenue. Registration Deadline for classes is January 10, 2017. Motel is Days Inn: 605-224-0411 with room registration deadline of Jan. 10, 2017. You must call motel and specify the Dakota Transit Association block to reserve or cancel a room. The block is for the night of Jan. 24. Motel address is 520 W. Sioux Ave., Pierre, SD. February 7-8, 2017 Sioux Falls, SD: DEFENSIVE DRIVING: Feb 7--1pm to 5pm MALTREATMENT AWARENESS: Feb 8--8am to noon. Classes will be held at Sioux Falls Metro facility: 500 E. 6 th Street. Registration Deadline for classes is January 25, 2017. Motel is Country Inn & Suites: 605-334-3410 with room registration deadline of Jan. 7, 2017. You must call motel and specify the Dakota Transit Association block to reserve or cancel a room. The block is for the night of Feb. 7. Motel address is 200 E. 8 th St. Sioux Falls. Phone: 701-848-6480 or e-mail: lindaf1@att.blackberry.net. 4
If scheduling fits, we can pick up residents of other counties as well when we make our monthly trips to the larger cities in ND. We currently offer free medical transportation to Benson County Residents 65 years and older, to destinations not over 60 miles from our base location, by fundraising to sponsor the fares. This has been a service well received by the elderly, and hope to continue receiving donations to keep this program going. Our agency uses a fleet of 3 minivans to transport passengers. And we operate with 3-part time drivers. The Director also fills in as driver when needed. We offer ride discount tickets to destinations not over 60-mile radius, and offer in-town Maddock transportation. A side service we participate in, is being a sub-recipient of a grant for transportation of Veterans to VA approved medical care anywhere in ND for free. This is an opportunity for Veterans living in highly rural counties of ND. We provide this service to Benson, Eddy, and Wells County Veterans. We do this with 2 vans and use our 3-part time drivers here also. As with all transit agencies: Our Passengers are the Most Important People in our Business. Dashing through the snow is easy in a one horse open sleigh but in that 36,000 pound, brick on skis that we call a bus, it s a little trickier. Hazardous winter conditions pose multiple problems for the public transportation industry. Not only do we need to consider the safety of the passengers and drivers while driving in deep snow or through whiteout conditions, but we also need to consider the safety of a passenger standing on the curb that might be waiting for a bus in sub-zero temperatures. The conditions will often result in less than optimal on-time performance which only compounds the problem for our customers. Deciding to suspend or cease service in Bismarck due to weather is never an easy decision; as we understand the importance of transportation in the lives of our riders. We also want to make sure that we can return people home in the afternoon that we took somewhere in the morning. However, taking unnecessary risks in the winter can result in damage to vehicles that will reduce future service, or worse, end in personal injury. Here in the Dakotas we can deal with these issues far better than much of the country but we need to know our limits and as always, drive safely. 5
Tidbit Articles Please contact me with articles for your Transit Tidbit. Recycle Please share your Transit Tidbit with your staff and any interested person(s). When you can t control what s happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what s happening. That s were your power is! Address Directors, please check with your bookkeepers as well as the rest of your staff to assure they have the correct DTA mailing address. Thanks to all! Jacque Senger DTA Executive Director Mailing Address: PO Box 973 Devils Lake, ND 58301 - Jacque www.dakotatransit.org E-Mail Address: jacquelinersenger@gondtc.com Phone Number: 701-662-2465 6