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RTMA studies rural feeder system for commuter rail
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
For the director of the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Regional Transportation Management Association, continued success is a matter of priorities.
And to help identify those priorities, RTMA has hired Greenville-based consulting firm URS to gather data throughout the tri-county region, including how the agency can coordinate with the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority to provide better transportation services.
“We’re looking at our current routes and services as well as how we can coordinate with CARTA to expand transportation in the rural areas,” said Will Hutto.
The report, commissioned in June, is due to RTMA’s board by Nov. 16.
The board will look at all recommendations presented by URS, but it is too soon to know which projects the agency will focus on first. Among the possibilities are shuttles several days a week in McClellanville, Johns Island and Lincolnville, Hutto said.
“We need to address additional needs in the rural areas,” Hutto said. “One thing we’re very interested in doing is making sure we can coordinate and transfer onto the CARTA system without directly duplicating services.”
Making connections with CARTA, Hutto said, is something that needs to happen long term if commuter rail is going to work.
“It’s a precursor to commuter rail,” he said of the coordination efforts. “We’ll be doing some of the same things, so it makes sense to try to work out the logistics now.”
Long term, commuter rail is a good idea for the area, Hutto said.
“The area is certainly growing,” he said. “There’s some question of whether the density (of the population) would make it economically feasible, but because of the impact on highways (with population growth), we need to look at that option. I can see a lot of good things happening with commuter rail.”
Comings and goings
Established in 1996, RTMA is one of two agencies in the tri-county area that provides public transportation. The other agency, CARTA, provides fixed-route and para-transit, also known as “on-demand,” services in the urban areas of Charleston and North Charleston and in the immediately surrounding areas. RTMA provides fixed-route and para-transit services to residents of the outlying rural areas.
RTMA serves the general public through scheduled routes and provides contract services for organizations as well as Medicaid Title XIX transportation services.
“We’re now in our 10th year, so it’s time to re-evaluate,” said Hutto regarding the study. “This is a good time to take a look at where we’re serving and how we’re serving and how the community has developed in that time frame.”
According to data from the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments, RTMA has experienced increasing ridership recently, due in part to increased coordination with local human service agencies, which enables RTMA to provide additional transportation services on a contract basis.
As a result of the contracts, RTMA has been able to increase its cost-recovery ratio to more than 65%. Like CARTA, RTMA lost potential funding with the decision to overturn the results of the sales tax referendum in 2002, but unlike CARTA, RTMA was able to absorb the shortfall due to the revenues received from the contract services.
Agency funding
The agency gets grant funding through some federal dollars from the Federal Transit Administration’s Section 5311 “non-urbanized area formula” and from the South Carolina Department of Transportation’s mass transit fund. The total amount of grand funding is 30% of RTMA’s budget. The remainder comes from fare box revenue and contract services, Hutto said.
“Most of it is from contract services,” he said. “The fare box amount is not that much.”
Besides the human service agencies and Medicaid patients, RMTA has contracts for adult day care businesses and workshops for handicapped adults.
The agency also works with corporate clients. Mikasa contracted with RTMA several years ago to bring in workers from Williamsburg County, one of the poorest counties in the state with a high unemployment rate, to its plant on Clements Ferry Road. Hutto said he has discussed similar contracts with other businesses.
Another revenue stream opened up recently when RTMA began allowing advertising on its buses.
“It’s still in the growing stage,” he said. “Last year was the first year we did it, but we brought in about $30,000 in revenue, and we’re picking up more and more sales as we go. It’s not an extremely large moneymaker, but it does add to the revenue.”
The ad-laden RTMA buses come in several colors now, according to the advertisers’ preferences, and some have banners down the side as well as ads in the windows.
“Advertising on a whole bus is about $750 per month per bus, but as the advertising picks up and the word gets out, the price will probably go up.”
RTMA employs about 30 workers and keeps about 35 buses on the road. The agency has three 40-foot buses on fixed routes, but the majority of the RTMA buses are what Hutto calls “cut-aways.”
“These look like a truck in front and a bus on the back and they hold 20 passengers,” he said. “We found that for this service at this point, these are the most economical vehicles to use. If we’re going to be transporting only eight or ten people, we’d rather have them in a cut-away than on a huge bus.”
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