Area needs transportation

Thank goodness for those who don’t take bad news lying down. Case in point is the call to action by those affected by Dutchess County’s announcement that it cancelled the LOOP bus routes in the northeastern part of the county (including Amenia, Millerton, North East and Pine Plains) due to low ridership.

Leading the brigade is the Connecticut-based Foundation for Community Health. Its programs and communications officer, Gertrude O’Sullivan, organized a brainstorming session at the North East Community Center (NECC) in Millerton last week to hash out the issue. It was a proactive step that needed to be made if the LOOP bus routes, or any community-based transportation systems, are to be salvaged for the region.

Although the Poughkeepsie-Dutchess County Transportation Council made the move in January to cancel all LOOP routes in the Harlem Valley towns listed above (with the exception of a route that ends at the Wassaic Metro-North train station), O’Sullivan managed to get Dutchess County Senior Planner Mark Debald on record stating there is “definitely� room to revisit the issue. That was enough for her to start working on a plan of attack.

That plan included last week’s meeting, which brought together representatives from the Foundation for Community Health, NECC, Friends of Seniors, Grace Church Outreach, Grace Smith House, Astor Head Start, the Millerton Village Board and local residents to talk strategy about how to reinstate local LOOP routes or at least get adequate alternatives.

The purpose of the discussion was to come up with practical and creative solutions to meet the needs of the communities affected by the discontinuation of the bus routes while working within the confines of the county’s ability to pay for a bus service that was not fully utilized. Although the buses traveling those routes were not fully populated, the stops they made were important. They included the Veterans Administration outpatient clinic in Pine Plains, the business district in Millerton and nearby the senior nutrition centers in Millerton and Amenia, just to name a few. The LOOP buses also provided transportation out of the Harlem Valley, bringing its residents to the greater Poughkeepsie area and throughout the county to employment opportunities that are oftentimes hard to find in rural towns. That service is no longer available, to the detriment of many hard-working local residents.

But don’t be totally discouraged. Different possibilities for alternative solutions were bandied about at last week’s gathering, including using smaller vehicles, using feeder routes and gathering riders at a central location where a LOOP bus could pick them up and drop them off, offering tax incentives so private companies could step in, offering flex service, and working closely with town leaders to develop schedules and routes. Those possibilities and more will be brought to the table and discussed with Debald, at a yet-to-be-scheduled meeting which O’Sullivan is confident will occur.

If you have other ideas, why not call them into the Foundation for Community Health at 860-364-5157 or to NECC at 518-789-4259?

In the meanwhile, to those who have and continue to rack their brains for viable solutions to this region’s transportation problems, thank you, you’re doing a great service for so many. Reliable and flexible transportation is just one of the keystones our community’s future is reliant on and its availability is paramount to providing all of us access to the services we have come to depend on for a full and robust life.