The first public transportation program could come to Pahrump as officials said the need for a mass transit system has increased among all walks of the county’s population.
The Nye County Transportation Commission on Wednesday presented a brief update on the Nye Ryder — a program that will provide an affordable transportation to the residents of Pahrump.
“The transportation commission has done numerous surveys, studies, assessments since 2008 up until this year and consistently, the need for public transportation has been listed by youth, adults, working, disabled, seniors, especially veterans as the number one or top two or three priorities for many of our communities,” said Laurayne Murray, the chair of the Nye County Transportation Committee.
The data from 2015 shows that 82 percent of Pahrump residents said they were going to use the service, another 8 percent said “maybe” and 7 percent said “no.”
A taxi-like, demand program will be designed by residents of the county, as officials plan to collect the data about the number of riders, routes and timing when the program kicks off. After that, Murray said Nye Ryder could have a mix of full-time and demand services.
“It’s similar to a taxi service in a sense that you call up and you say, ‘I’m at this address and I need to go to this address,’ and we schedule you a ride,” Murray said.
Albert Bass, vice chair of the Nye County Regional Transportation Committee, said the total budget for the reduced start-up plan of 6,000 hours per month is close to $550,000.
“The majority of program costs are from the operations side,” Bass said in an email. “This will account for about $350,000 of the total cost. The operations would be contracted out and not operated by the RTC.”
Nye Ryder will come at no cost to the county, as it will be covered by grants, Murray said. The program has already received a grant from the USDA Rural Passenger Technical Assistance Program that will provide one-and-a-half year’s worth of free technical assistance in program development. Four cut-away handicap accessible buses have been donated to the program by the Utah Transit Authority.
Currently, officials are grappling to find an entity that would provide storage and maintenance for the four buses. Murray said they plan to apply for more grants this fall, and if the county approves the program, it could be launched in a year.
“We haven’t settled but as of right now, the most interest that we have is from the Nye County School District, so that’s being discussed,” Murray said. “If we continue to go with the county, we are going to have those discussions as well. It depends on who steps up first for the maintenance of the buses.”
While Murray said the program could be a boon the county as it would create jobs and small businesses, some officials questioned whether the county would have to eventually pay out of pocket for the buses’ maintenance and other associated expenses.
“So, money has to come from somewhere,” Commissioner Dan Schinhofen said. “So, that’s what I’m concerned with. Also, it is Pahrump-centric at this time, it may be something (that) the town of Pahrump needs to see about kicking into. … These buses that are coming, we aren’t shown the condition they are in. What’s going to have to be replaced, repaired, maintained. There’s going to be something. That’s just the way I see it.”
Murray said over time, the funding of the program is expected to increase as the basis for awarding grants and the amount of the grants improves over time due to the program’s established performance.
“The basis for awarding grants and the amount of the grants improves over time as your performance of the service is established, so the possibility of the funding increasing is more likely than decreasing given the program that we have put together,” she said.
Next year, Nye Ryder will pursue several grants including NDOT, Aging and Disability Services Division and Veteran Services.
Bass said they hope to eventually expand transportation opportunities for the central and northern part of the county, however the program is still pending the approval from the county commissioners who said they want to see a detailed budget.
“Maybe that’s a good thing to put on a ballot,” Schinhofen said. “‘Would you pay for a bus service?’ Something along that line.”