The Colony and SPAN (Special Programs for Aging Needs) are currently working on changes in their contract to address in the increase in ridership.
SPAN Transit is a company that provides bus services for individuals who are 60 years or older and/or have a professionally verified disability. Flyer printing can be used by such companies to make news of their services more widely known.
The mobile mobility manager for SPAN, Laura Joy, said the company has a contract with the city for 2,700 approved senior trips and 5,568 approved Demand Response trips for the year which means there should be a total of 8,268 trips. However, she has pointed out that the actual number of trips for the 2018-2019 years was 500 more than that number.
There are several ways SPAN and the city are looking to handle such overages. One of these is applying for the federal 5310 program, which SPAN has done, requesting an amount of $75,000 over three years.
Joy said that an approval for such funding would mean the money would be made available next summer. However, Joy is requesting rewriting the contract between the city and SPAN so that these funds could be made available in October when the current contract expires so that anticipated growth and costs for additional growth could be covered.
Joy is offering another option of increasing its budget from the city by $4,000 to address this upsurge in ridership.
