Officials with the City of Fremont are busy working on a new transportation system that they hope will be able to fill some of the gaps of the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging rural transportation program, which will stop service on June 30.
The ENOA program serves five counties — the rural area of Douglas County as well as Dodge, Sarpy, Cass and Washington counties — providing transportation to a range of destinations, including medical facilities, doctors’ offices, grocery stores and other spots.
The long-standing program is coming to an end on June 30, said ENOA Community Services Division Director Chris Gillette, because the agency did not seek to renew a Nebraska Department of Transportation 5311 Grant, which funded the program.
Gillette said the state 5311 Grant required matching funds from the ENOA, and also had a requirement that all ages of riders be serviced. The ENOA board members thought the agency’s focus should be fully on the elderly.
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“We offered transportation in the five counties we covered. Our grant required that the transportation be available to all ages for all purposes,” Gillette explained. “With being the Office on Aging, our governing board really felt that the focus of any of our money that were putting into programs should be for the older adults.”
Gillette said the ENOA mission is to serve senior citizens and elderly residents, and after analysis of the transportation service, they discovered it was being abused by younger riders who were seeking rides to places such as casinos.
“With the transportation program, we were transporting 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds … if they wanted a ride anywhere, they were given it. If they wanted a ride to the casino, they were given it,” she added. “And the very next call (for a ride) might be from an older adult who needed to go to the doctor, but I just filled that last van seat with someone younger.”
The state 5311 Grant will be applied for by Fremont, Gillette added, and the city bought three vans formerly used by the ENOA program to use once the Fremont program is up and running.
Nick Hansen, director of parks and recreation department for the City of Fremont, said there are few details of the program finalized as he and others at the city are still working on the project.
The likely cost of a ride will be between $3 and $5, Hansen noted, and the service has a tentative schedule not yet finalized of possibly 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. The ages eligible for riding the vans are 16 and older.
The Fremont program will have one full-time driver, one part-time driver and one transportation coordinator or scheduler, he explained. Those roles have yet to be filled and advertisements seeking applicants, he added, are expected to go online in the next week or so.
“We are working and trying to get it going. We don’t give a (start) date, because then everyone expects it at that time. Our goal is to try to get rides available by August,” Hansen said.
Hansen said the geographic is initially set by Fremont is within the city limits and then 2 miles from the edge of the city’s borders. The service will not transport riders outside of that boundary.
During the June 13 meeting of the Fremont City Council, the council voted 7-0 to approve and also waive final reading of an ordinance creating the new positions and setting the base pay at $13.50 an hour for the full-time driver and $14 an hour for the transportation coordinator/schedule staffer.
Fremont City Administrator Jody Sanders told the council members present — Ward 4 Council Member Sally Ganem was absent — that 90% of the salaries and pay for the three transportation staff members would be funded by the state 5311 grant.
Sanders also said the city is new to the transportation service, and the service will be developed and tweaked as more information is gleaned from ridership data and other information.
“We really don’t know what the volume will be. We could get slammed,” she said. “We are purchasing three vans. The importance of passing all three readings (on June 13) is so that those (employee details) are in place and we can get these (jobs) posted and folks hired before July 1.”
