BUCKHANNON – Country Roads Transit officials updated the Upshur County Commission on their efforts to expand their services.
Laura Ward, director of Country Roads Transit, said they have seen a decrease in riders during the pandemic.
“Like everything else, COVID has affected Country Roads Transit,” she told the commission at its Thursday, Feb. 4 meeting. “We were right on track maintaining our ridership numbers, and COVID hit last March, so we’ve seen about a 20 percent decrease this year in the number of riders.”
“We think that’s a good thing because that means everybody’s complying with the stay-at-home order as much as they can, but we would like to make a point that the folks we are transporting have no other way to get to those appointments,” Ward added. “They have no other way to get to medical appointments and to shopping appointments.”
Country Roads Transit has continued their partnership with the Upshur County Senior Center, which Ward said makes up 60 percent of their ridership.
“They ride the route van for free if they are a member of senior center and have filled out the proper forms and they also get a certain amount that’s [worth] $15 a month in demand-response rides, so that’s the other service we provide, which is calling ahead of time, scheduling your ride and we will take you where you need to be on time.”
Country Roads Transit applied for an expansion of their grant from the Division of Public Transit so they could start taking veterans to the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg and non-veterans to United Hospital Center. They were granted the route expansion, and now they are just waiting for their new vehicle – a van – to arrive.
“We’ll be going from Elkins and stop in Upshur County, and we are looking at the possibility of stopping in Lewis County, and going to the Veterans Hospital in Clarksburg, and to the UHC campus,” Ward said. “We would do that in the morning and come home in the afternoon, so to begin, it would be a two-days a week service. We would alternate Monday, Wednesday and Tuesday, Thursday, so that if a particular specialist is only there one day a week, nobody misses that opportunity to go there.”
She also announced a service to help St. Joseph’s Hospital patients attend their appointments, starting next week.
“They have some of the folks in the community who weren’t coming to their doctor’s appointment, because they didn’t have transportation, so we have worked out with the administration there that we’re going to deviate from our normal procedure, and they are going to give people they’ve identified that are having trouble getting to their doctors’ appointments a voucher for a ride,” Ward said. “We’re going to allow these folks to use vouchers instead of fare to get to where they’re going and then we’re just going to bill St. Joe’s at the end of the month.”
In other Upshur County Commission news:
The commission approved a paper road closure application for a portion of Darylene Drive, requested by Wiley Creasey.
The commission approved the Federal of Human Organizations of West Virginia/Stanton Foundation 2021 grant application on behalf of the Lewis-Upshur Animal Control Facility in the amount of $4,149. If awarded, the funding will be used to purchase two new dryers, one washing machine and a new computer with dual monitors.
