Public transportation needs outpace available services on the central Kenai Peninsula but one of the programs helping to fill the gap is hoping to obtain funding again next year.
The Central Peninsula Transportation Task Force met Monday and finalized priorities for Alaska Community Transit funding through the Alaska Department of Transportation. The Independent Living Center is proposing to continue its voucher program for seniors and people with disabilities in the central peninsula area, Homer and Seward. The program costs about $160,000 a year, with a mix of public funds, support from some local agencies and some of the costs covered by riders.
Shari Conner, chair of the task force, said the ILC program is a convenient way for participants to get around through discounted fares on cab rides.
“It doesn’t limit where you have to go,” Conner said. “It’s not just for the doctor or just for the grocery store. People can go to dinner with their family, they can go to church, they can go to an outing or a community event. Anything they would like to use transportation for, they can use a voucher for. And it’s 24-seven, they just call the cab and they can go whenever they want to.”
Seniors and those with disabilities apply for the program through the ILC. Once approved, central peninsula riders can purchase up to 25 vouchers a month for $4 each. The voucher is good up to the first $12 of a cab fare. In Homer, a $3 voucher gets you up a free ride in town up to four miles, or you can buy $10 vouchers for longer-distance trips. It’s also $3 per voucher in Seward, good for up to a four-mile ride. The cab companies that contract with the Independent Living Center are reimbursed for the vouchers at a negotiated rate. And the riders pay anything above what the vouchers cover.
The program isn’t perfect, though.
“This is only for individuals that have an identified disability or are a senior. It doesn’t include anyone else in just the general public,” Conner said. “And they don’t really have enough vouchers to go through the full fiscal year. So there’re still holes. It doesn’t meet everyone’s needs, especially if they live outside one of the communities and the voucher doesn’t take them all the way to where they want to go.”
Conner said riders combine other public transit services to travel farther or cover more of the cost of a ride. Carts, the Central Area Rural Transit System, sells punch cards for reduced-rate trips around the central peninsula. Trips must be booked a day in advance, though, with no booking possible outside Monday through Friday business hours. And the Ninilchik Tribal Council offers bus service between Homer and Kenai, but only on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, and only to designated stops.
Cobbling together affordable, convenient travel between these services requires a level of planning and logistics that can be taken for granted by those with their own vehicles.
Conner said that’s why the task force is always looking for public input.
“Everyone that comes to the meeting that’s on task force generally has transportation, so when you’re looking what the needs of others are we really need to have their voice so that we know that we’re going in the right direction for someone that’s without transportation,” she said.
The next meeting is at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 14 at the ILC office on K-Beach Road. For those who don’t have transportation to the meetings, Conner said they figure it out.
“Generally we can get someone to a meeting. And they can definitely try and call in as well, and so that way we have that voice of the consumer,” she said.
The next step for the ILC’s voucher grant is going before the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly for a resolution of support. If that’s granted, the funding application will be submitted in January. If awarded, money becomes available in July for the 2020 fiscal year.
For information on the task force or to get a copy of the current transportation plan, contact Conner at sconner@cpgh.org or 714-4197.
