San Luis Obispo - Caltrans - State of California

SAN LUIS OBISPO REGION
COORDINATED HUMAN SERVICES-PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION PLAN
confusing for consumers and agency personnel, reporting that it can be difficult for a
prospective rider to understand what is available and how best to navigate it. Proposals
for changes or improvements to the existing Ride-On information base may be among
the projects it chooses to propose. A similar recommendation from the triennial
performance audit (Aug 2006) was for Ride-On to prepare a marketing plan
encompassing all its services and programs.
‣ Vehicle Maintenance - This may be an area where Ride-On can play an important
support role to other organizations, particularly if back-up or loaner vehicles can be
made available to human services agencies for which maintenance services to their
fleets were provided. There are significant fleets in the county, notably the Headstart
program, California Polytechnic State University, a few senior centers and the Tri
Counties Regional Center vendors. These agencies could potentially be assisted by
Ride-On’s expanded maintenance program soon to be coordinated with the Regional
Transit Authority.
‣ Testing Special Pilots - Several corridors and areas where new service is needed have
been identified through this plan in Chapter 4, Stakeholder Outreach, some of which
have also surfaced in recent annual unmet needs hearings. Ride-On is potentially able
to test responses to addressing these needs, in concert with SLOCOG, where there is
limited social service agency interest to fill the gaps. An important aspect of the new
SAFETEA-LU funding opportunities is to leverage other dollars, such as to bring Federal
Dept. of Health and Human Services (DHHS) funds into the public transit mix. Thus it is
important not to move too fast to plug gaps that could possibly be addressed by human
services agencies, as direct providers. But where these partner agencies cannot directly
provide transportation, or do not wish to do so, Ride-On could become the mechanism
for developing coordinated responses. Importantly though, funding for these pilots will
have to be matched by participating partner agencies.
In the recent SRTP, Ride-On’s future is characterized by three levels of growth: 1. Basic
service level; 2. Modest expansion and; 3. Substantial expansion. Each of these growth
levels is then described by different activities, some of which could become particular projects
responsive to some of the needs identified by this coordinated plan. There are caveats to
undertaking some of these projects made explicit in the 2006 SRTP, namely that Ride-On must
ensure its Basic service level elements are firmly in place before considerable expansion is
undertaken or it will not be able to meet Federal, State and regional compliance requirements
under its existing funding base.
Defining Ride-On’s role in developing the required coordination plan will involve a combination
of factors. For all candidate projects, it will be incumbent upon Ride-On to develop a financing
package: both the Section 5316 and Section 5317 funding opportunities are based on
leveraging dollars new to public transit, or conversely extending existing human services agency
dollars by matching them with the FTA funds.
Those key factors include:
The CTSA’s interest and willingness to undertake particular projects that are suggested
by this plan,
SLOCOG’s interest and willingness to use the expertise of Ride-On in filling gaps that
might otherwise go unfilled.
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OCTOBER 2007