Council on Aging secures transportation funding

Date: 3/14/2013

By Chris Maza

chrism@thereminder.com

EAST LONGMEADOW — The East Longmeadow Council on Aging (COA) recently secured substantial grant funding that will help support the regional para-transportation services it offers.

COA Executive Director Carolyn Brennan told Reminder Publications that the organization received $30,600 through a grant offered by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Administration and Finance that would keep the "Two-Town Trolley," which supplements the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority's (PVTA) normal services for East Longmeadow and Hampden, running at no cost to the town.

"Our goal was to have this be self-sufficient," she said. "It is funded by the riders, who pay a dollar each way and we have been writing grants and going after other funding sources."

The Two-Town Trolley was one of the 27 programs supporting 162 cities and towns in the Commonwealth that received funding.

"It's awesome and what makes it better is the fact that most grants don't get fully funded and ours was," Brennan said.

Because the transportation program receives no public funding, the grant, she explained, would go toward keeping the service affordable for seniors who rely on it to get to their respective senior centers as well as medical appointments.

"It costs us $7 per passenger and riders are paying $1," she said.

At $1 per ride, the program is currently cheaper than normal public transportation.

"To use the PVTA, it's $2.50 each way and there's the possibility that in a few years for citizens of Hampden, that could go up to $7 because [Hampden] doesn't have a fixed route," Brennan said. "Many seniors go to the Senior Center for lunch and to pay $7 each way, plus paying for lunch, it is a major expense. I know I don't pay that much for lunch on a daily basis."

Brennan added that smaller regional transportation operations such as the Two-Town Trolley offer greater flexibility to riders.

"We can do better with regionalization on a smaller scale. With larger regional operations, you lose individual knowledge of the communities and there is not a lot of efficiency," she said. "The larger regional services aren't doing anything wrong, they're just limited."

Because of more flexible scheduling, the Two-Town Trolley makes more effective use of each run, transporting more seniors at a time than normal regional service, Brennan explained.

"Instead of two or three vans with two or three people on them, our vans are full," she said.

Brennan added that "within three months" of its inception in 2012, she knew the program was effective.

"At this point, we could use another new van, but we don't have the funding for that," she said.