RECOMMENDATION

Information only.

SUMMARY

The RTPA took action during this year's Unmet Transit Needs process to establish three new express transit routes on a trial basis. The routes are the Cottonwood Express, the Intermountain Express (formerly Burney Express) and the Airport Road Corridor Express. The start date for these new services occurred on November 5. Marketing for these services has also occurred in the form of newspaper articles that include the schedules and brochures for each route.

DISCUSSION

At the June 2001 RTPA meeting, the Agency made findings that there are transit needs that are reasonable to meet in excess of the current level of service. The RTPA took action to implement transit services to Cottonwood, the Airport Road Corridor area and to extend the existing Burney Express from Burney to McArthur.

The County entered into an agreement with the Redding Area Bus Authority (RABA) to provide the Cottonwood Express service and the Intermountain Express service. The Airport Road route is within the RABA service area and therefore, does not require a third party agreement. The trial transit services started on November 5 and have operated without any major problems. Routes have three round trips per day, except the Airport Road Corridor Express that has four round trips per day. To date ridership has been sporadic as shown on table below. A marketing program to promote the new routes and make riders aware of the schedules has been in place since the week of October 22. The program included press releases and newspaper articles that include the schedules and brochures for each route. Brochures for each route are attached to the staff report.

Because these routes are established for a one-year trial period, ridership will be monitored during the trial period to determine if the RTPA established fare box ratio is met.  At the time of this staff report ridership/revenue and service hours data for the new routes were not available for the month of November, but will be presented at the December 11 meeting.

Daniel J. Kovacich, Executive Officer

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Attachments: Express Service Brochures (may be obtained at the RTPA office)