TACT to Have New Home Within the Year

TACT General Manager Scott Close discusses the specifics of the organization's new building while giving his report during a meeting held yesterday evening.

by Nathan Lasher

During his General Manager’s report during yesterday’s Town And Country Transit (TACT) meeting, Scott Kloes announced that the new TACT building should be finished within the year. “I received a schedule from the architects, and the building should be finished in November and should be occupied in December of 2010,” he said. “It could be earlier, but they are accounting for weather delays and such.”

The new building is to be funded by a five-year-old approximately $1.298 million grant. “The grant money has been there,” said Kloes. “We had to spend it on the building. Everything to do with the building is grant money, but it also is locally matched. That money has already been set aside.”

TACT almost lost the grant due to inactivity last September, but was able to jumpstart it through the efforts of Clearview Strategies, a Pittsburgh consulting firm that managed TACT affairs from February until October 2009.

“TACT was approved over three years ago for a $1.3 million grant to tear down an existing storage building located adjacent to the office on North Grant Avenue and erect a modern facility,” Clearview consultant Lynn Colosi said as they concluded their tenure last September. “The first step to get back into the good graces of the Federal Transit Administration was to select an architect to design the building.”

Colosi had estimated that $100,000 would be spent on architectural/engineering services to design the new building, $50,000 to demolish the current building, $923,000 to fund construction of the new facility, and $294,000 to purchase new communication equipment for vehicles.

Inside, the building will contain a restroom and break room for workers, and a conveniently placed wash bay. “We won’t have to tie up the middle of the garage like we do now,” said Kloes. “We are looking into an automatic/manual bus wash. They’re not terribly expensive, but with all of the other things that we have got on our plate it’s not something we’ve looked into. If we get some money that we have to spend, that would be a nice opportunity. Keeping the busses clean is a great way of keeping them in shape. You all know the cleaner you keep your car the better it lasts.” The new building will have enough space inside to store twelve of the 23-foot cutaway busses that TACT presently uses. “We didn’t feel it was necessary to accommodate for the larger busses because we are planning on phasing those out,” said Kloes.

TACT is currently planning to use prefabricated construction for the building. “It will not limit us as to which contractor to use,” said Kloes. “The construction design will be prefabricated, and then whatever contractor chooses to give us the best bid on the erection of it will be ok. The Amish have inquired that they would like to bid on the construction, so we may be able to take some of that extra money and apply it to some other frilly things for the building.”

The outside of the building is planned to have a metal roof which is planned to come in under budget. “I think the outside of the building will look very nice,” said Kloes. “The colors will not be offensive to the neighborhood. I think it’s something that we will be able to be very proud of.”

Currently, TACT is in the phase where they are having core samples done to study the foundation and the foundation walls. When it comes to demolition of the current building, there has been a slight snag. “Due to the fact that they don’t feel that the concrete floor is usable, we’re going to have to take that floor completely out, which is going to maybe skew our demolition budget a little bit,” said Kloes. “We’re going to have to see how that plays out. We were hoping to be able to reuse that floor, and the core samples may show that they might be able to just cover it. If they can cover it without having to tear it out, then we should be ok.

All in all, Kloes and the rest of the board seemed excited for the new building. “I think it’s going to be great for what we’re looking for,” said Kloes.

TACT Looks to Increase Ridership to Avoid Shortfall

TACT General Manager Scott Kloes (center) meets with the Town and Country Transit Board yesterday afternoon. Missing from the attendees was Ford City Borough Council representative Ron Dillard. Dillard told Council earlier this month his appointment to the TACT Board would make it impossible for him to attend a 4PM Wednesday afternoon finance committee meeting.

by Nathan Lasher

 Town and Country Transit (TACT) is taking action to support its Shared Ride program by attempting to increase its fixed ridership numbers.

During the TACT meeting, held yesterday afternoon, General Manager Scott Kloes said he has put into motion the idea of distributing flyers in order to promote TACT programs.

When Kloes attended a Kittanning Borough Council meeting two months ago, he said the group was interested in helping.

“They had expressed interest in helping us distribute some flyers to the community through churches, shelters, and other organizations,” said Kloes. “I have made up a flyer, and (Director of Finance) Patti (Baker) has corrected it six times, so I think I’ve got it where it needs to be. I gave it to our vendors today, and I think it’s something we may want to do county wide. I also looked into doing an insert in the paper.  Really, the PWD (Persons with Disabilities) program and the Shared Ride program are really what we need to grow. The PWD has been growing on its own quite well. I think we nurtured it a little bit more, so it’s going to help close that gap that we have in the Shared Ride program which is something that we really need to be concerned about.”

Kloes also discussed the idea of restructuring some of the bus routes in order to accommodate possible riders. “We’ve had some input from seniors in Ford City who are in some of those apartment buildings up off the street.  They would love to ride the bus, are capable of riding the fixed route, but can’t really walk the distance down to the bus line,” said Kloes. “ So, probably next week or the first part of February, Jerry and I are going to do some figuring. What we may start working on some ideas like, for example, for the ten o’clock run we will go up past those apartments. During the 11 o’clock run we will go through Ford City, but instead of going past those apartments we’ll go up the hill here to Trader Horn. During the next run, maybe we will go down another side street in Ford City in order to try to pick up more riders.”

After he voiced his ideas for increasing ridership, Kloes stressed the importance of increasing ridership in order to knock out TACT’s debt.

“The only way we will get more money from the state is through our fixed route numbers, period,” said Kloes. “So we need to look at other ways to get fixed ridership up. We need to generate more fixed ridership so that we can get more money from the state, so we can close this gap off and really get our debt taken care of. We are looking forward to doing that.   Patti’s numbers, although they looked sort of scary in the beginning, show that we are going in the right direction.”

Kloes also reported that TACT is saving money by taking two large busses off of the road and replacing them with two smaller busses. “Those small busses save us a hundred dollars each per day,” Kloes said.