UPDATE: I have been hearing from several sources and city officials that the on-demand service may never happen. The first problem is that the guy who cooked it up left. The second problem is that many in the innovation office are dropping the ball, and skipping important meetings. Thirdly there isn’t any real funding for the program in the transit fund for it, so they will have to subsidize it somehow. And lastly the union representing SAM says there is no deal on running a pilot on Sundays unless their contract is revised. They basically are saying if anyone would be willing to work, it would be like holiday pay. But the biggest problem is they really don’t have enough staff to administer it. So if all of these issues are solved, they will pretty much have to contract with another private transportation provider to accomplish the pilot program. My guess is this thing will die quietly in the night. Oh, and the below meeting has yet to publish their agenda online, which will be a violation of State Law. That seems to be a habit lately with the city, and the Sioux Falls School District, who didn’t have ANY public input at any of their public boundary task force meetings. I think it is time to start filing some complaints with the Open Meetings Commission. They could probably have hearings for about a week with all the violations.
The Advocacy Collective will be doing a presentation at the PTAB (Public Transit Advisory Board) meeting, Monday, February 24th, at 3:45 at the new City bldg. Â
The presentation will be in support of enhancing our current fixed-route system vs. implementing an on-demand system which is scheduled for a pilot project this summer..
I know, I know….. ‘the train has already left the station’, esp. with PTH wanting to promote the on-demand system as ‘his plum project’ for the Harvard Bloomberg Initiative. In spite of this, we will be continuing to speak out against this ill-conceived revamping of our public transit.
Many in our community are not even aware this major redesign of Sioux Area Metro is taking place. We have been speaking out (PTAB meetings, Stehly Report, etc.) for the past several months. Those who will be part of the presentation Monday are individuals who have amassed decades of advocacy for SF vulnerable populations. These are the people who have had ‘boots on the ground’ for many years working with segments of our city’s population who are reliant on SF public transit for both their work and personal lives.
The meeting will take place at 231 N. Dakota Avenue across the street from the Downtown Public Library.
l3wis 
