The following items are excerpted from news releases issued by California Transit Association members. If you are a member of the Association and would like to submit an item to be considered for inclusion in the Member News Library, please email your press releases to Managing Editor Stephanie Jordan (sjordan@freelancecomm.com). Photos and cutline information with your news release submissions, when possible, are encouraged.
INDUSTRY NEWS
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OCTA Helps Transport Medical Workers to COVID-19 Vaccination Clinics
As the familiar blue-and-orange OC Bus pulled up to the Santa Ana senior center and the doors opened, the passengers who filed out were greeted with smiles, raised arms and even a few cheers. These were not regular Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) bus passengers. These 12 passengers riding the bus were nurses, medical technicians and volunteers organized by the Orange County Health Care Agency who were being transported to the senior center to help administer the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.
OCTA is working in coordination with Orange County health officials and emergency operations personnel to help get trained medical workers from the Disneyland super site for vaccination distributions to smaller sites throughout the county. Those targeted clinics are being set up to distribute the vaccine to vulnerable seniors age 65 years and older.
“As we address the challenges of the public health crisis, it’s vital that we all pull together and use our resources to help each other,” said OCTA Chairman Andrew Do, also the county’s First District Supervisor. “OCTA has delivered essential services throughout the pandemic and I’m proud to see the agency providing for the community in one more way.”
An OCTA bus transported the first group of medical workers to a Santa Ana senior center on Jan. 20. OCTA will continue to coordinate with the county to use additional buses as needed when more vaccination sites open.
“OCTA men and women always stand ready to assist our community and respond to emergencies, whether fires, floods or this public health crisis,” said OCTA CEO Darrell E. Johnson. “We thank our drivers and the health workers for safely delivering the COVID-19 vaccine to the most vulnerable residents in the county.”
Metro Conversations: Partnering to Address Food Insecurity
During the COVID-19 health crisis, one in four LA County households are experiencing food insecurity, representing an estimated 873,000 households. To help address this issue, LA Metro worked with First 5 LA, Antelope Valley Partners for Health, Para Los Niños, and other Best Start Community Network partners to deliver food and other necessities to families in need utilizing resources from its Mobility On Demand (MOD) partnership with Via.
Food delivery service during the COVID-19 crisis has helped keep people sheltered in place with less exposure for grocery or food bank workers. Metro’s partnership with multiple non-profits led to more than 750 deliveries of food and essential goods per week to families in need, with 9,911 total deliveries to date.
An upcoming Metro Conversations: Partnering to Address Food Insecurity will take place this month to share more about this dynamic partnership that evolved out of the Mobility on Demand (MOD) project.
What is Metro Conversations?
Metro Conversations is a new series of virtual gatherings, bringing stories about Metro to light that might not have been heard before. Past Metro Conversations are available for replay.
Foothill Transit to Debut New Electric Double Deck Buses Later This Year
Foothill Transit has purchased two electric versions of the Alexander Dennis Inc. (ADI) double deck bus. The twin Enviro500EVs made their way from the UK and will debut in the Foothill Transit’s Southern California fleet this year. Now that the all-electric double deck buses have arrived in the California, they will undergo a branding transformation.
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Foothill Transit first demonstrated the ADI double deck bus on its downtown Los Angeles routes in October 2016. The customer response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic, proving that California was hungry for good design, smart public transit, and vastly improved ride quality. The Enviro500EV will be 13’6” tall and will be completely zero emissions thanks to an ADI partnership with Proterra, who will supply the battery and drive train technology. Foothill Transit already operates 30 Proterra electric buses in its fleet. This bus acquisition is part of Foothill Transit’s commitment to go all-electric by 2030.
Foothill Transit’s leadership in electric bus integration began in 2010 when it became the first public transit agency in the nation to deploy three Proterra fast-charge, all electric buses on the 16.1-mile Line 291 between the cities of Pomona and La Verne. Line 291 then became the first all-electric fast charge bus line in the nation in 2014 and to date, Foothill Transit’s electric fleet had logged over one and a half million miles of service in Southern California.
A Metro Express Lanes Toll Revenue Capital Grant awarded to Foothill Transit in 2018 for $1.4M made the purchase of these two electric double deck buses from ADI possible. Foothill Transit will replace two 12-year old compressed natural gas (CNG) commuter express buses with two ADI Enviro500EVs.
One 40-foot CNG bus can carry approximately 38 customers. The Enviro500EV bus can carry 80 customers in the same road footprint, thereby doubling the trip capacity with half the number of vehicles. Carrying more people in the same footprint allows Foothill Transit greater flexibility in choosing from limited stop locations in downtown Los Angeles, where road space is at a premium.
“Deploying the Enviro500EV will be transformative for Los Angeles and for the United States,” said Doran Barnes, Executive Director of Foothill Transit. “No other transit agency in the country utilizes this technology on commuter express routes. And adding seats without increasing traffic congestion or local greenhouse gas emissions is the ultimate benefit for one of the nation’s most heavily traveled corridors.”
VTA Offers Service Frequency Improvements, No Fare Collection
As part of Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority‘s (VTA) continuing commitment to providing safe, clean and reliable service for its customers and employees, VTA has increased the frequency of seven bus routes, re-implemented rear-door boarding, and suspended collecting fares systemwide as of Feb. 8. VTA will closely monitor how rear-door boarding impacts the positive rate of infection of VTA employees, while also monitoring compliance with existing safety polices and rules.
The frequency improvements are now in effect for bus lines 23, 25, 64, 66, 68, 71, 77 to help relieve the impact of passenger pass-ups due to limited capacity necessitated by the requirements to social distance. While these are the primary changes, nearly all routes in the system will have schedule adjustments for connections and timing purposes.
VTA continues to encourage riders to help alleviate the limited capacity on buses by keeping travel to essential trips only. Customers can sign up to receive service alerts and get real-time crowding information via the VTA Transit app.
AVTA and GreenPower Partner to Bring Electric, Zero Emission Rides to AV Hospital Employees
When Samaritan’s Purse opened a 54-bed emergency field hospital in the parking lot of the Antelope Valley Hospital in January to care for patients suffering from COVID- 19 and to offer relief to an overwhelmed healthcare system, the structure displaced AV Hospital employees that would have normally parked in the lot now assigned to the field hospital.
Although the field hospital, the second of its kind in the United States, was a much welcomed support to the local healthcare system, the longer walk for hospital employees from farther located parking lots was not. The recent inclement weather in the Antelope Valley would have made the walk miserable for many doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff had it not been for Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA) and GreenPower Motor Company.
“These vital health care professionals have given so much and worked so hard for our community. When we saw the need, we knew we had to do something to help them arrive to work a little more refreshed,” said AVTA Chairman of the Board Marvin Crist. “The City of Lancaster turned to AVTA who then contacted their supplier GreenPower Motor Company.”