June 19, 2013
Outreach & Opportunity to Participate
Outreach – besides the steering committee and stakeholder
interviews the Study will hold at least two neighborhood meetings for additional
outreach from people who might need alternative means to participate in the
planning process. Ideally at least one meeting that is likely to attract the
Latino/Spanish speaking population and another that hears ideas from the
minority population (about 80% of the current ridership is African-American).
- There will also be two public open houses – one of which may be on National Night Out in August.
- The consultant will work with Agency Stakeholders at the upcoming Locally Coordinated Human Service/Public Transportation Planning meeting being conducted by the Mid-East Commission, on June 5 in Washington, NC. The outputs of the Locally Coordinated Planning document must state specific unmet needs of the elderly population and/or persons with disabilities who live in the City of Greenville in order to be eligible for targeted Federal Transit Administration funds.
Opportunity to participate – the entire five year
planning process in designed to be interactive and we encourage you to
participate. You can post your comments
on this blog page and receive a string of on-going dialogue or you can even mail
the Project Manager, Bill Barlow at wbarlow@stantec.com and hold a private
conversation. We are also posting a calendar of events so you can follow the
process in person. Then event calendar
will be updated as dates become firm, so please check back often.
Surveys
A total of 553 on-board surveys were collected in the first week of May and those results are now being analyzed to learn more about people who depend on the bus to get around. At first glance we discovered that people need dependable on time performance to get to class and work on-time.
- PCC is the biggest single destination and that people need the bus to get to work.
- 46% of the 553 surveys indicate a transfer was necessary to reach the riders final destination.
- 58% of today’s riders have no car in their household, to use for their trip.
Stakeholder Interviews
Stakeholder Interviews with the GREAT Transit
Manager, the Pitt Area Transit System (PATS) Director, the ECU Director of
Transit, other GREAT staff and survey takers who rode on the bus, they
indicated:
- Regionalization
discussions should focus on coordination as opposed to consolidation, i.e. bus
transfer locations and synchronized timing.
- Reliable
taxi service is definitely needed; both as a secondary provider/contract
service and as a means to get to the Airport
- Pitt
Community College is a prime user of the GREAT services. Currently about 5% of
the PCC 9,000 credit course students ride GREAT to campus. The college pays
about $9,000 per year for the service. The College wants to explore how to fund
more hours of service.
- GREAT’s
annual support from the Federal Transit Administration is about $1.6 million
and the State supplies about $285,000 in grants; while the City will need to
supply $521, 682 to meet the expected $2.4 million 2014 expenses. The baseline
budget is expected to stay relatively flat over the next five year period.
There is a $2.5 million grant that is dedicated to the intermodal center
project. The NC Legislators called for a 3% reduction in transit funding that
may impacts GREAT’s operating funds that come from the State in 2014.
- Current
loop routing has some redundancy that should be analyzed (i.e. 5TH Street).
This should be done with respect to other areas vying for expanded services,
i.e. recent changes for new Wal-Mart service.
- Bigger
pass discounts for multiple rides should be considered.
- More bus
stops, waiting pads and shelters (both sides Wal-Mart and Hosp. plus Golden
Coral, new stops along Greenville Blvd., Willabee Park, Hwy 43).
- A couple
of ADA infractions were noticed - announcements were not made at all major
stops and wheelchair ramps extended beyond the sidewalk where there was no pad
for offloading, e.g. wheelchairs ended up maneuvering in the grass.
- Safety
did not appear to be a big concern.
- Drivers
were generally observed to be courteous and helpful.
Peer Analysis
Greenville Area Transit was compared to several
peer transit agencies based on:
- annual budget
- similar area of coverage and population density,
- number of vehicles in the fleet, and
- annual passengers.
Danville (VA) Transit serves population of 48,500 with same equipment as
GREAT (84,500)
GREAT has a healthy 19% ratio of cost recovery coming from fare collection.
GREAT has a healthy 19% ratio of cost recovery coming from fare collection.
The
“College Prowler” was also consulted because of the importance of ECU to the
City of Greenville. Most Universities about the size of ECU tended to rank low
in perceived safety on campus and in town - if students are nervous on campus
and in town they may also be reluctant to use the City Bus.
Availability of
shopping was ranked lower by ECU students than any of the other 4 campuses they
were compared to, while variety of off campus dining ranked very high and
Greenville was considered one of the most affordable towns for off-campus
housing (68 out of 1,500 schools).
Parking on and off campus was ranked
“limited”; this creates a positive transit atmosphere. Transit was given a
solid “B” for availability, with very few ECU students using GREAT – this “B”
must be assumed to be for ECU bus service. There does appear to be some GREAT
market opportunities with students that should be explored.
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