Shannon Fiecke of the Shakopee Valley News reports:

When it comes to providing Dial-a-Ride bus service, Scott and Carver counties have been doing a lot of things right and are getting even better as they merge departments this year — which is why local officials are a little wary of efforts by the Metropolitan Council to standardize services metro-wide as the council tries to resolve problems in other counties.

Four months ago, Carver County staff moved into the offices of Scott County Transit on First Avenue in Shakopee. It was some work to merge two ride-reservation systems, but they’ve already been able to expand customer service hours and add an additional bus run.

As they’ve been able to book more rides, Scott County Transit Manager Troy Beam has watched use of the service grow, with the combined agency providing 17,837 rides in April.

The counties have been able to renovate the Shakopee office and merge computer systems thanks in large part to grant funding from the Federal Transportation Authority. They will soon be able to dispatch rides faster and eliminate paperwork by putting touch-screen computers on the buses — an idea other metro transit providers are interested in copying.

In addition to using its transit buses to provide Dial-a-Ride service on an on-availability basis, Scott County gives guaranteed rides to disabled clients.

Whereas Scott County has been the locally contracted American with Disabilities Act provider, ADA service in Chanhassen and Chaska has not been provided by Carver County, but separate agencies that contract with the Metropolitan Council.

With ADA, rides for people with disabilities must be provided close to any fixed bus route.

Unlike Scott and Carver counties, which have one agency providing Dial-a-Ride transit services, there is a plethora of churches, non-profits and others contracted by the Met Council to do so in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.

Because the present web of Dial-a-Ride providers across the metro is inefficient and service varies greatly among counties, causing gaps as well as duplication, the Met Council is revamping how it distributes funding for Dial-a-Ride services, Beam said.

The council is planning to begin funding counties directly for Dial-a-Ride. The counties will then choose to provide the service themselves, bid it out or let the council seek bids for service.

The council is also pushing for greater uniformity in rates, as well as for a common name and number for Dial-a-Ride service, which would be called Local Link, on all buses. An automated regional number would direct callers back to their local provider to make reservations.
Scott and Carver counties, which already had their own design and name (Smart Link) picked out for their buses, don’t want to give up their branding. Although the Met Council says they can have their name and number on the buses as well, county commissioners in a joint workshop meeting last week decided that would be too confusing for the public.

Local officials understand the need for making Dial-a-Ride operations more efficient across the metro area, and think Scott and Carver could be held up as a model for other counties to follow. They’re fearful, however, that too much regionalization could be a bad thing.

Scott has long worked to transfer riders to providers in other jurisdictions, whether that be Carver or Anoka’s services or DARTS in Dakota County, as local residents try to get elsewhere in the metro area.

“The council is looking to do what we’ve been doing all along,” Beam said.

Because Carver and Scott are now acting in tandem, they can free up drivers that would normally transfer clients from one county to the next.

Both services often transported clients to similar locations, so now one bus can do what two buses did before, Beam said.

As they become more efficient and automate the dispatching of rides, the counties should be able to transport many more people for the same amount of money and also focus on getting more riders to use fixed bus routes when possible, Beam said.

One of the goals of the collaboration is to become non-dependent on the local tax levy, Scott County Public Works Director Lezlie Vermillion told county commissioners last month.

The Met Council provides the transit buses and also contributes to Dial-a-Ride operations. The counties further supplement their transit operations with local tax dollars, as well as funding from other sources, such as dollars they get for transporting human services clients and Scott County’s ADA contract.

Commissioners urged their staff to try to convince the Met Council to let the counties use only local branding and number on the buses.

Local residents, many of them elderly and disabled, may have difficulty navigating an automated phone system to get to a local dispatcher, Beam said later.

While Scott County is open to regional thinking, it means giving up its identity and putting the reputation it’s earned as a transit provider at risk by becoming involved in one organization, Beam explained later.

There is fear of what extent the Met Council will push collaboration and how centralized the system could get.

“Sometimes when you get to be bigger, people become numbers,” Beam said. “If you sit and listen to our department, they know all the customers by name — and they know them by voice.”

Carver County Commissioner Tom Workman of Chanhassen, who said he has a bad taste in his mouth from dealing with the Met Council on Southwest Transit, expressed skepticism about the attempt to re-label local buses with a regional look and number.

“I’d hold on to as much of your identity, a.k.a. dignity, as you can,” Workman said.

Workman said later that Southwest Transit has gotten pressure to become more like Metro Transit.

Instead of being part of the Metro Transit system, some suburbs have chosen to provide their own fixed-route services, such as Southwest Transit, which offers service to downtown Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota, and Southdale, as well as between the cities of Chanhassen, Chaska and Eden Prairie.

In running its own system, Carver has been able to fill its buses and offer nicer buses and nicer seats, Workman said.

“The Met Council has sort of begun to make everything more uniform, really to the expense of us and our opt-outs,” Workman said. “The fear is a lot of these nice touches and service amenities would fall to the wayside, with a move into a bigger system.”

The council is also working on new funding formulas for Dial-a-Ride providers that will be based on poverty, age and other demographic factors, likely resulting in a decline in contribution to Scott and Carver.

Lezlie Vermillion said Met Council officials have assured the counties they don’t want to see a loss of service here, and Scott and Carver should assume they’ll receive the same level of funding for now.

Although they don’t want to lose their identity or local control, local officials believe Dial-a-Ride could become more efficient in the metro area.

Scott County Commissioner Jerry Hennen of Shakopee said there’s too many providers in the metro area and no one knows what the other is doing, hampering possible coordination in the transporting of riders across different points if the metro area.

Allen Hermann, transit supervisor for Carver County, told commissioners the Met Council knows Hennepin and Ramsey counties’ delivery systems are broken, with duplication among providers and fixed-route buses operating in the same areas as Dial-a-Ride buses.

While having a regional number on the local transit buses may not be that big of an issue in itself, Workman explained later, it’s “a distance-control thing” and in his mind, a move toward a regionalization that could ultimately wrestle away too much control from local providers.

“We want to run a good system — it needs to be a Scott and Carver deal primarily,” he said.

Shannon Fiecke is a staff writer for the Shakopee Valley News. She can be reached at sfiecke@swpub.com.