DRAFT

Washington State Public Transportation Plan
Chapter Three: Goals and Action Strategies
GOAL 2 ACCESS
Provide and sustain a transportation system that allows people of all ages, ability, and
geographic locations to access jobs, goods, services, schools and community activities
Washington’s transportation system does not fully meet the current access needs of people
throughout the state. Rapid growth, competing interests and an inability to fully integrate
and fund plans at all levels, have left gaps between the supply of public transportation and
the demand for service. The anecdotal evidence ranges from commuters who are left behind
due to overloaded buses to rural elderly who are forced to scramble to enlist family or
neighbors to get to medical appointments.
ACCESS is defined in this plan as the degree to which a product,
device, service or environment is available to the public regardless of
age, ability or income.
Transportation access will also be greatly impacted by the shifting demand put on
transit, nonprofit, and for-profit providers. As public transit agencies changed their service
boundaries in response to declining tax revenues due to the Great Recession, the burden
to provide transportation shifted to non-profit and for-profit providers who generally rely
on grants to provide service. The administrative capacity at some of the smaller nonprofits
stresses their ability to provide service to clients that traditionally have barriers to accessing
transportation.
For example, some residents in Clallam and Jefferson counties are part of a volunteer
job access transportation program operated by Olympic Community Action Program
that provides rides to employment sites in very isolated portions of the western Olympic
Peninsula. This service represents a niche transportation market that isn’t served by transit,
but still provides basic access to some employees of the Kalaloch Lodge. Without this service,
the costs of long distance commuting would become a disproportionate amount of the
incomes for those employees.
WSDOT | DRAFT October 2015 | WaTransPlan.com
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