MOUNT VERNON — State Rep. Rick Carfagna boarded a Knox Area Transit bus Friday afternoon, ready to experience how the public transportation service operates and dig deeper into the details of the system.
Prior to his public transportation ride through Mount Vernon, Carfagna sat down with KAT Transit Program Administrator Martin McAvoy and Mobility Manager Susie Simpson to find out what has made KAT successful and where help is needed.
“I know local transportation is an ongoing issue, not just in Knox, but also Delaware County,” Carfagna said.
KAT is controlled by the Knox County Board of Commissioners and is operated by Knox County Job and Family Services. Residents in Knox County can use KAT’s services Monday through Saturday with call-in, same-day, and repeat service scheduling, as well as on-demand and curb-to-curb service with the Mount Vernon Shuttle. KAT utilizes 28 vehicles in its fleet with a staff of 34 drivers, though it is behind in its vehicle replacement program.
“Any rural public transportation – there’s going to be issues,” said McAvoy. “By no means are we meeting the complete need for public transportation. But we’re not doing too bad. For the most part we are managing pretty well.”
McAvoy noted the increase in services over the past few years.
In 2017, the number of trips totaled 161,344 over 727,331 miles. Total ridership through KAT has steadily increased since 2013 when KAT combined with JFS for management support. When the Ohio Department of Transportation helped to secure a computer dispatch system to allow for better managing of schedules and rides, total ridership went from 129,562 in 2013 to 145,408 in 2016.
“That has been one of the biggest things that has helped us continue to grow,” McAvoy said of the computer dispatch software. “It has changed our resources.”
That change in how ride schedules are managed allowed KAT to go from an average of 400 trips per day in 2015 to 600 trips per day in 2017. The 600-trip-per-day average has held strong to start 2018.
“It’s allowed us to look where demand is and put our vehicles in those demand hours,” McAvoy said. “We identified we needed more vehicles on the road from 7 to 9:30, 10 o’clock (in the morning).”
During that peak time, KAT has 22 vehicles on the road.
“(The computer system) helps us monitor where we’re up and down and develop some of those trends. I couldn’t imagine trying to do it on paper in the past,” McAvoy said.
“Modernization of your operations – not only has it helped you become more efficient in route scheduling, but it has also helped you drive more riders,” Carfagna summed up.
Top destination points within Knox County are WalMart, Kroger, and Knox Community Hospital. Trips range from medical, shopping, school and personal trips to the occasional ride to work. McAvoy acknowledged that employment transit was still an area that could be improved.
“It’s actually one of our lowest demographics that we’re providing service to,” McAvoy admitted. “That’s one of the things we’re working on growing.”
KAT and Kenyon College partnered in 2017 for a study on public transportation, which developed into a village route service proposal. McAvoy said the proposal was KAT’s first attempt to build transportation to primarily serve the industrial parks and the employment community.
The pilot program for that proposal began with a Mount Vernon-Gambier shuttle this past school year for Kenyon College students and Gambier residents. It was the first rural daily fixed route for the transit service. The new route totaled roughly 4,000 trips between August and December 2017.
To implement the entire village route service proposal, which includes Centerburg, Danville, and Fredericktown, KAT would need local matches to fund the routes. McAvoy has been at work finding different ways to fund the service.
“Knox County has never had the timed, fixed route shuttle system that Columbus, Delaware and some of the others have. This is kind of a first concept,” McAvoy acknowledged. “They (the villages) want data, but the data is not a known.”
“If you’re helping someone get to employment that lives in the village, that person is going to increase their net worth, increase their income taxes that they’re putting into the community,” Carfagna reasoned. “It’s almost like seed money, in a way. You’re giving these people transportation opportunities that maybe they don’t already have or you’re enhancing an existing route system.”
McAvoy agreed. “If you have more people working, you have more tax base. Also, if you have more people working, more opportunities for insurance, health benefits, all those; less opportunities for people with idle hands, crime and those kind of things. There’s benefits across the board. Most communities see that.”
KAT is funded by federal (40 percent) and state (21 percent) grants, a Farebox grant (10 percent), Knox County and City of Mount Vernon grants, contract services, and advertising. KAT is not funded by local taxes. The Federal Transit Administration grant has increased since 2013 though minor dips have occurred a few times. Currently, KAT has a $728,000 federal grant for 2018, up from a $530,000 grant in 2017.
KAT also receives a Elderly and Disabled Grant to provide a fare discount to seniors and disabled people.
McAvoy said state funding was drastically cut in 2008 and the budgets never recovered. The state grant has fluctuated nearly every year from a high of $250,180 in 2014 to $185,835 the following year. KAT received only $155,000 in state funding last year, but secured a $175,000 for 2018.
Despite the seesawing grant numbers, KAT’s operating costs have steadily increased. KAT’s operating cost for this year totals $1,661,987, an 8 percent increase from the previous year.
“Funding is always a challenge,” McAvoy said. “All along we’ve been increasing. We’ve increased staff, we’ve increased operations. It was a tough decision in 2017. Do we cut service? Our funding was cut and at the time it was almost a $100,000 cut we hadn’t planned.”
McAvoy said they had the support of the county commissioners and JFS, but KAT needed to be able to secure its own funding, too.
Carfagna asked what he could do to advocate for public transportation. In Martin’s mind, there were a number of things that could impact local transit, including changes to Medicaid, regionalization of services, and more.
