PART adds buses, looking for city lot

By Angela Schmoll
angela@surrymessenger.com

DOBSON — Local residents bound for Forsyth County for work or shopping will have new departure and return times beginning today with the addition of two more bus routes from Mount Airy to Winston-Salem.
Brent McKinney, executive director for the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation, told county commissioners Monday night that the service will add the two buses.
“The first bus will leave Mount Airy at 5:40 a.m. and they will run all day,” he said. “During the peak hours, they’ll all be running and the last one will come back from Winston at 7:05 p.m.” McKinney said the later bus will serve area residents working a 12-hour shift at Forsyth or Baptist medical centers.
“Business is booming,” he said. “We’ve added buses and went to bigger buses, but with the increase in fuel costs, people are still standing up. Last week we ran 20 buses and 11 of them had people standing up on them. There are fewer at the end of the week because some companies in Winston-Salem have gone to a four-day workweek.”
Counting up riders, McKinney said the buses had run 20 days and carried 6,153 riders.
“The average trip is 37 miles and let’s say vehicles average 20 mph,” he said. “Our folks traveled 227,000 miles. There is some carpooling, so if we count that in, they saved 8,893 gallons of gas last month. That’s a lot of emissions that didn’t go in the air and a lot of fuel that was saved.”
McKinney said the buses only get five mpg, but still had a net savings of 6,800 gallons.
“Our passengers saved $237 each in fuel costs, which is about half of what they saved in wear and tear on their vehicles,” he said. Rides cost $2 each way or $50 for a monthly pass.
With the number of riders growing, use of the park and ride lots has also grown. In Mount Airy, where PART does not own a lot, that has created a new problem. While the owner of the property where Big Lots is located has allowed PART to use a portion of the parking lot, McKinney said they have been asked to relocate.
“We have to find another lot in Mount Airy, hopefully close,” he said. “We have received a letter to move.”
After the two buses are added, McKinney said PART will not be able to get more of the same style until next year. “New York city has ordered 650 and anything we order has to be behind that,” he said.
Commissioners asked McKinney about routes from Elkin, but he said they had been unable to find suitable land available for routes. “Let me work on that,” Commissioner Jim Harrell said.
Also during the meeting the board approved YVEDDI as the administrator of the Rural Operation Assistant Program, which provides transportation with federal and state money for elderly and disabled and general rural transportation for education and job seeking efforts.
Charlie Walker, YVEDDI transportation director, told the board the state has commissioned a study of how best to provide seamless rural transportation for the county and that both PART and YVEDDI should be involved.
“You just have to guard against the big fish eating all the small fish,” he said. “It will be up to you to endorse that plan.”