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Vehicle
Inventory
Summary
Vehicle
Inventory Will Identify Coordination Opportunities
CTE recently concluded a
Vehicle Inventory Census as part of a Job Access
Reverse Commute (JARC) Grant received from the
Federal Transit Administration (FTA) earlier this
year.
The online Vehicle Inventory Census was
distributed to over 150 transportation providers,
towns & villages, hospitals, religious
organizations and health & human service
agencies to identify the number and type of
vehicles serving individuals in Erie and Niagara
Counties.
Eighty percent of the organizations that
responded provide transportation to individuals
through a combination of bus passes, contracts
with other transportation providers and direct operation of
vehicles.
A
preliminary review of
the data shows that there are over 1,500 vehicles
providing health & human service
transportation in Erie & Niagara Counties
utilizing nearly 3,000 paid and volunteer
drivers.
Just over half of these vehicles are
wheelchair accessible. The peak
hours of operations on weekdays were 8:00 - 10:00
am and 2:00 - 4:00 pm.
Participants reported having a total of 168
vacant ambulatory seats and 61 vacant wheelchair
spaces during these peak hours. Overall,
responses indicated that there is excess capacity
in the system for ambulatory passengers but not
enough capacity for passengers needing wheelchair
service.
Follow
up is currently underway to obtain vehicle
information from additional organizations that
will be included in a final summary. Findings
from the vehicle inventory will be used to
identify coordination opportunities for employment
related transportation. In
addition, information gathered will be used by the
Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation
Council (GBNRTC) when they update the region's
Public Transit-Human Service Transportation Plan
later this year. For more
information regarding the Vehicle Inventory,
please contact Carl Sadowski at
csadowski@cteny.com.
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Grant
Will Provide Social Transportation for Persons
with Developmental
Disabilities
CTE is pleased to announce
a new partnership with the Community Services for
the Developmentally Disabled that will provide
much needed transportation for persons with
developmental disabilities to social
opportunities.
The Fill in the Gap Program
is being funded through a grant from the New York
State Office for Person's with Developmental
Disabilities (OPWDD).
While there are some
programs that exist, such as Medicaid, that
provide funding for transportation to medical
appointments, few resources exist for persons with
developmental disabilities needing transportation
for shopping, recreation and other social
activities.
This program fills a large gap for
transportation to locations that are not normally
covered and will increase the quality of life and
independence for persons living with developmental
disabilities.
This program
utilizes credentialed vendor's within CTE's
transportation network to effectively
carry out the trips. For more information
about the
Fill in the Gap Program, please contact
Adam DeLang at Community Services for the
Developmentally Disabled at
adelang@csdd.net.
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Online
Mapping Tool
Mapping Tool Will Help non-profits
with Transportation
Planning
As part of a grant from the John R.
Oishei Foundation, CTE and CUBRC have developed an
online mapping tool that will assist health and
human service organizations in the planning and
creation of transportation routes. CUBRC and CTE began discussions
with Meals on Wheels for Western New York in 2008
to explore their interest and needs for a web
based planning tool. A series
of meetings were held to identify needs, potential
solutions and to demonstrate potential tool
capabilities.
Information from these planning meetings
was used to develop a mapping tool that allows
Meals on Wheels to visually display their routes,
including pickup & drop-off locations, and to
provide simple metrics (mileage, driving times,
etc.) for individual routes. The
mapping tool also includes several features that
allows organizations to easily manipulate routes
and visualize changes such as reordering
destinations, adding and removing destinations and
merging routes together.
Organizations will then be able to
print a map and directions to distribute to their
drivers.
This
tool will be part of the Smart Travel WNY
information website and will be made available to
local human service agencies registering with
CTE.
Smart Travel WNY is a
one-stop online resource for local, state and
national transportation information.
For
more information about the Mapping visualization
tool, please contact Carl Sadowski at csadowski@cteny.com or visit www.smarttravelwny.org.
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Human
Services Transportation Plan
Update
GBNRTC
to Update the Local Public Transit-Human Services
Transportation Plan
The Greater
Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council
will be updating the local Public Transit-Human
Services Transportation Plan (HSTP) for Erie and
Niagara Counties later this year. The HSTP
is a requirement of the Safe Accountable Flexible
Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for
Users (SAFETEA-LU) and provides a framework for
the selection and distribution of multiple Federal
Transit Administration (FTA) grants; including the
Elderly and Individuals with Disabilities (Section
5310); Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC,
Section 5316); and New Freedom (Section 5317)
programs.
The update will address transportation
needs and help to ensure that Erie and Niagara
Counties and its human service agencies coordinate
transportation resources funded through the above
FTA programs.
For
more information regarding the HSTP update, please
contact Barb Courtney at the GBNRTC at
bcourtney@gbnrtc.org.
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