GRANITE FALLS -- The Yellow Medicine County Board of Commissioners is concerned about a proposed change in the formula for distributing federal funds to replace public transit buses.
The commissioners approved a resolution at their meeting Tuesday in Granite Falls expressing opposition to the proposal. They expressed concerns that the changes would make it difficult for the public transit system serving the county to "compete" with other systems in replacing its buses.
Along with expressing their opposition, the commissioners asked that the proposal be modified to take into consideration the funding concerns of the rural transit system serving the county. The resolution is aimed at the District 8 office of the Minnesota Department of Transportation in Willmar, which distributes federal and state funds to 12 public transit systems in the region.
Prairie Five Community Action Council oversees the Prairie Rides public transit system for Yellow Medicine, Chippewa, Swift, Lac qui Parle and Big Stone counties. It operates a fleet of nine buses to provide public transit in the five counties and four communities. It also oversees a volunteer rides program, according to Dick Olson, its director.
The system currently serves more than 70,000 passengers a year. Olson said that in most years, somewhere between 50,000 to 57,000 of the passengers are served by public transit vehicles. The remaining passengers are served through the volunteer rides program.
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The current formula for allocating bus replacement funds is based largely on the age and miles logged on individual vehicles. It also takes into account whether a bus is used by a multi-county system, or one that serves only an individual community or county, according to Beverly Herfindahl, regional transit director for MnDOT.
Replacement needs are typically triggered when a bus has five years and 150,000 miles of service.
The proposed changes to the formula would continue to factor both miles and years of service, but would also use passenger numbers, according to Herfindahl. MnDOT wants transit systems to average five passengers per hour of travel or better.
The proposed formula change would encourage systems to look at how they can be more efficient. The options range from getting more people to use public transit to reducing the number of buses on the road and carrying more passengers per mile, Herfindahl explained.
In the case of Prairie Five, she said it might also want to consider steering more of its passengers from the volunteer rides program to public transit buses if possible.
As a system serving a large rural area, Olson said that Prairie Five does not have a high ratio of passengers per mile traveled. As a result, Prairie Five is concerned that the proposed formula change would lower its ranking when its bus replacement needs are compared to other systems, he said. He fears that it could lead to a reduction in the federal funds Prairie Five receives for replacing buses in the system.
Olson said he will be bringing his concerns about the proposal to a meeting of the transit systems in MnDOT District 8 at the end of this month.
There are currently 76 public transit vehicles in the District 8 region's 12 public transit systems. Of that number, 54 are "active'' vehicles and the remainder are backup vehicles. In the last 10 years, MnDOT has been able to finance 82 vehicle replacements, a number which also reflects an expansion in transit services, according to Herfindahl.
