New transit service ready
Operation could be functioning by September
Thursday, August 7, 2008 10:20 AM PDT
Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
ONTARIO
Planners, operators and members of a steering committee are wrapping up the final details of a new local transit service to link Payette, Ontario and Fruitland.
The service, Snake River Transit, is expected to be up and running by September, officials said.
The preferred date for starting the service is Sept. 2, but it could start as late as Sept. 15, Terri Lindenberg, executive director of Treasure Valley Transit, said during a steering committee meeting Wednesday in Ontario.
Treasure Valley Transit will run the new service under contract with the local governing bodies in Oregon and Idaho.
Snake River Transit is a partnership between the Malheur Council on Aging and Treasure Valley Transit, which has operations around southwest Idaho. Initial funding for the service will be provided by the Oregon Department of Transportation Transit Division, with matching funds from the two counties and three cities. The City of Ontario is contributing $30,000; Payette and Fruitland, $15,000 each and Malheur and Payette counties, $15,000 each.
“There is a lot of time in this — in getting started,” Lindenberg said during a review of the transit service contract. Still to come is CPR and first aid training for drivers, she said, as well as a course in defensive driving and evacuation.
“Sept. 2 is our ideal,” Linderberg said. “My drop dead date is Sept. 15.”
By the numbers, the route is 44 miles long, with 32 in Idaho and 121⁄2 in Ontario, Brian Cole, transit service planning consultant, said. There are currently 48 stops, including 24 in Ontario, for the service.
The service will run 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday — no service on weekends or holidays.
Location of the stops will be announced later, but included will be government offices, public libraries, post offices, medical facilities and some businesses.
Besides looping through downtown Payette, the route will go out to 17th Avenue North and will circle around through Fruitland via Northwest 16th Street, North Pennsylvania Avenue, down to Southwest Seventh Street onto South Iowa Street and Southwest Third Street and North Whitley Drive.
In Ontario the proposed route will touch Heinz Frozen Foods, the Malheur County Fairgrounds and will go as far west as the Social Security office. The service will then go by Treasure Valley Community College and the Four Rivers Cultural Center before looping out to Southwest 18th Avenue and then back to Southeast Fifth Avenue via the overpass and Southeast Second Street.
People who are not able to get to a bus stop or need a ride to locations off the bus route will still be able to use Dial-a-Ride, the bus service now offered by Malheur Council on Aging and Community Services.
“The buses are on order,” Lindenberg said, with one expected to be available this month. It was put on the assembly line, July 14, she said. TVT will own one bus and Malheur Council on Aging will own one.
