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Sanoma County from a chosen spot of all the earth as far as nature is concerned, according to the famed plant wizard Luther Burbank Diverse County, with 1,010,000 acres of land on 1574 miles of scenic roadways, Omagh County is rightfully famed for its agriculture did a culture,

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industry and recreation, as well as for the amazingly successful ethnic and economic mixture of its more than 340,000 residents on for the forward looking philosophy of its local governing bodies. Now we invite you to take a closer look at Sanoma County in the eighties with your

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host, Rich McGlinchy. We'll be talking about problem. It is all too much with US transportation, and you know, there are cars on 101 literally coming out one's ears there also a lot of vehicle traffic all over the county of Sonoma. And probably one of the best

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solutions to that problem is if you and I would all partake of public transit. We have a new Sonoma County, fairly new, some kind of transit system, local system, even in the center of county in the Santa Ros area. We're gonna talk to to transit officials

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for the Sonoma County Transit Service. On the right of your screen is Brian. I'll be And on the left, the screens and Daniel. And they're both transit specialists. And, uh, well, Brian hasn't. But Dan's been against before. How am I rich? Nice to have you. Thank

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dissenting. We're talking about public transit. Really? Is the solution to a lot of our problems undoubtedly. And I think that maybe we should, uh, kind of jump around. I'll ask you a question. Unless you have you have you think of something you want to add. By

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all means, jump in and you've gone back with transit. Perchance, I think they relocated or located out of their new center out there. So tell us something about the transit. Where did they go? How many buses you have? How many drivers? How do you know? How

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do you catch a bus? Well, we are now. So what question? Okay, we're all, uh, calling ourselves now the Countywide ride because that describes our service. We cover the entire county with transit routes that come inbound to Santa Rosa as the main hub we've got. Let's

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see Ryan, how many buses do we have now? We have 32 Bus 32 that includes buses of varying sizes from 40 passenger buses, down to 15 passenger buses. And depending on where the bus is going and what area is going to serve, we will put out

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a bus that's appropriate for that area. We've got about 50 drivers, and we started back in 1980 when I was working in your office and I began working on the information telephones. And now I'm busy promoting Sonoma County chances, which I firmly believe in, and I

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use it. And I think it's a marvelous system because our buses are clean and their well maintained and we have drivers we call the passenger friendly drivers because they're so helpful and courteous to our passengers. And people are used to riding on buses and big cities

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where the drivers really don't have time for the amenities of courtesy. But our drivers certainly due out in our driving from the rural areas of the county into Santa Rosa. How many passengers? Uh, Carrie, How many miles? Well, Brian, probably he's a statistical wizard. Average weekday

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we carry between 3100 and 3300 passengers on Saturdays. We don't operate a zoo, much services we do during the week, and we have between 911 100 passengers over the course of the day. The transit system travels 3700 miles, and, uh, over our 12 hour service day,

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we average about 266 passengers per hour. So it for every minute that goes by during a weekday about 4.5 people get on the Cinema County Transit bus somewhere throughout the county. You don't see too many half people's sure. I noticed that you have a time getting

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up that little must. What's new? That's a no McCallie tragic right now. Well, um, by the time this air shows, we will have new service out on the street and we have local service going into the Granville area, and that will be called about 28 it

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will stay in Granville and it's 15 passenger bus with wheelchair lift and it will serve the Granville area and then another small bus will be serving the Windsor neighborhoods. And we hope people will be able to get out of their cars and also senior citizens who

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have a hard time getting around will really use thes bus, the new bus service and basically what we're saying is use it or lose it. But we've had Mom with support from both gurn villain Windsor Apartment complex managers. The chambers of commerce are behind us, and

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the senior centers are very supportive of the new service and members. One of Windsor. Is that it? That's called the 66. Get your kicks on Route 66. Remember that way? Payday. Uh, how about these routes to describe 28 66. How are they designed? Brian's the person

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that designed them. Um, basically, they're used to face the figures. Wiz. Yeah. Designs around, right. What are you doing? His blow up balloons and go out there and promote the system. Talk to the people face to face. What about how our way. Look at the route

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66 that's in the Windsor area. Those routes terminate from the Liquid Hill shopping center and we have really three legs there. We have ah, leg that goes north up to ah, Windsor Road or Star Road, I guess. Way have another leg that goes down south. Teoh

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Shiloh and then another route that travels the Central Windsor area. And they were designed my like and set to provide local service to Windsor residents to get him into the major shopping center, which really is the hub of the Windsor area now, and also to tie

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up with our regular Route 60 that travels on to Cloverdale, Healdsburg to the north and Santa Rosa to the south. So when the new service starts, it'll just open up a whole lot of travel opportunities for these people that may have not had any transportation in

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the past. Around 28 in the river area, we have five different routes that that really cover the Greater Grenville area, and it's centered in front of the Safeway store in corn Villain. That's, uh, that's really the hub of the Grenville area, and so it's similar to

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our Windows service and it it, too, will type with the regular about 20 to travel into Santa Rosa or out Occidental. Uh, you have to also addressed the problem accessibility for passengers that are in wheelchairs, for instance. Now, how do you address accessibility? Well, right now

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we're just completing a a wheelchair lift replacement project on summer older buses, and that project will be complete in July. And at that time, with our July schedule, divisions will be able to provide 100% accessible service on all trips on Cinema County routes. So right now,

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the system is about 75 80% accessible. But in July, when this project is complete will be 100%. What is that? There's a five floor plan. What? What are we talking about here? Is that this right? You know, programs That was just that is a requirement from

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the urban mass transit Administration that we comply with rules from section 54 of a rehabilitation active. I believe this 1972 73 what that that means for transit providers that we we receive federal funding. And because we receive federal funding, we have to dress thief I before

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rules. And in our case, it is easy for us to address because we will be 100% accessible. Uh, what kind of research did you do on passengers who's riding the bus? Well, we're we're constantly studying the transit system, and what I mean by that is that

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we take onboard passengers. Surveys frequently way take scheduled hearings. Checks were always monitoring the performance of the system. We have a telephone information center that takes in passenger complaints and compliments. So on a daily basis, we know who's riding the bus way. Take the surveys together.

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Input. We revised our schedules three times a year. And during those times we try to pull in all this information and try to come up with new schedules at best address. The current need to the community. Do you have any thoughts on that? Uh, Brian, where

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does the funding come for come from? For transit. Uh, I think people would probably like to know to the passenger fares. Paid the whole freight. No, they don't. Uh, so, Mechanic transit, we really have to sources of funding that support operations. And that comes from the

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California State Transportation Almanac funds, which are 1/4 of 1% of your state sales tax. Um, we used those monies for operations along with the fare box revenues that our passengers pay. Currently, the fare box revenues represent about 20% so 80% of their trip cost to subsidize.

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So it's highly subsidised service. Uh, Jenna McCarthy can transit. Only Traverse is our county borders. That right way over the line? No. If you want to get out of Sonoma County on a bus, you would take Golden Gate Transit, which operates between Santa Rosa through Marin

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County, down to San Francisco. And if you just wanted to travel around in the city of Santa Rosa, you would use the Santa Rosa City bus. And then each town in Sonoma County has their own little transit system. Maybe it's a small jitney bus H city,

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and then Sonoma County Transit sort of threads it all together because we provide the interest City intercity service connecting everybody Uh, we were talking earlier and somebody mentioned a five year plan. Did you cover that among we go? No. All right, let's just get into what

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we asked for about five years, OK? Comment on what is our next by people. Well, um, each year at this time were required to submit a Children's transplant, which is the five year operating plan for Sanoma County Transit, and recently a draft plan was completed. We're

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still working on the final plan which will go to the Board of Supervisors for approval in June, June and what their plan does it takes and announce a look at the entire system. House performing right now. It makes recommendations for further service improvements in the future

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over the five years it projects out our capital programme when we'll we will purchase buses next, what type of activities will be involved in everything way? Do really, within the next five years? It spells it all out with financial capital plan. And Brian's worked very hard

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on that plan. It's a killer. Okay, What are you doing? Florida Commuter. And I presume, I guess I am talking about Not only the people were going to work, but also the school kids. Right? Um, we this last year have put in some wonderful commute trips

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for people to get into Santa Rosa for an 8 to 5 shift or school schedule and coming in from the river on the Route 20. The bus comes straight into Santa Rosa and the same with from Sonoma Valley. You can catch an express right into Santa

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Rosa and I take the 20 in from the river and I'm addicted to It's absolutely marvellous. I had no idea that driving to work on River Road made me so tense until I took the bus and then back went back to driving. And then I realized

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how nerve racking it was dodging cars on River Road. So we have these great express services which, um, the buses air about half full now, and we need to fill him up all the way of and leave your car at home. Well, if more people were

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just, uh, adhere to what you just said, it really would alleviate the problem of automobiles on the the local highways. Recently, we talked to some of the supervisors, and one of the things that they're really really frightened by is the increase of traffic on 101 at

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the Corridor service speak from San Francisco, I guess all the way up to the the border. But that is become a real problem up to Santa Rosa. It's getting to be a problem on it. Toe Windsor on and they look to the not too distant future

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when there's gonna be a real mess, if you will, all the way up to Cloverdale on or beyond. And so what you said a moment ago about taking the 20 yourself forever. If more people would just do that, it would really put a big dent and

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the problems we're having with these freeways. One of the reasons people are really reluctant to get out of their cars for commuting is that they like the isolation that they can achieve in a car because nobody's going to bother them. But something I've discovered using our

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express buses and also Golden Gate commuters also experiences when you are part of the commute crowd on a bus. Everybody respects your space in your limits, and they don't talk to each other on those commute buses and you're left alone to take a nap for to

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read the morning newspaper. So you can still maintain that anonymity on the bus and this I find it's really very true for the commute trips. It's different in the middle of the day. You find people much more friendly visiting, meeting new neighbors on the bus, and

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it's a more of a social event. But the commuters are really great about keeping themselves quiet and keeping to themselves. No, I'm going to discuss this further. Just a moment. We're gonna come back and talk more about this than Omagh County transit system. First, these important

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and treatment of seizures can help keep kids like Evans on the team. Get the facts right. Epilepsy Foundation of America, Washington, D. C. To double 013 Welcome back to this edition of cinema care in the eighties. We're talking about public transit, a subject that should be

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very, very important to all of us because we're beginning to have real problems with vehicles in Sonoma County. Our highways are jamming up in one of the ways we can alleviate. This problem is to get out of our vehicles and take public transit. We're dealing with

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a problem that is not going to go away. And the people are with me on this program are people that are dealing with this every day. On the right of your screen is Bryant Albi on the left and Daniel and both are members or they're actually

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transit specials specialists for no without a transit system. Get that plate fixed. I want to ask you a question about the community. How does it actually benefit from the cinema kind of transit system other than, as we were saying, alleviating traffic on the highway? Right? Well,

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public transportation generally can benefit the community by reducing the amount of cars on the road. That also reduces the amount of roads that have to be repaired every year if we get split. If we have less cars on the roads, we're not spending as much money

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funding road maintenance. Also, air pollution. I've noticed in Santa Rosa lately. It looks like smog. It is shocking to me. I ran away from Southern California, and if we can eliminate the air pollution, that's another plus. And so if we can get 40 people into a

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bus that's 40 cars off the road, and that's just one bus, and you multiply that with all of our transit routes and also the other transit systems. We consider ourselves part of a network, and we working conjunction with the other transit systems because we all have

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different service areas. You you view market the transit system, and I know that's part of your your job out there. How do you do this right? That's I think I have all the fun out of transit. Um, I have several promotions that we've been working on

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continuously for the West two or three years. One of them has to do when schools open. We provide a lot of service for directly to schools. Four students and we schedule our buses to meet the beginning and end times of schools. So the beginning of each

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school year, I put together an information package that sent to each student, and I have the great day trips, which is designed for seniors, because our buses in the middle of the day or traveling outbound from Santa Ros, and there's hardly anybody on them. So my

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challenge was, how do we get folks to ride the bus to do some sightseeing and visiting in the outer areas of Sonoma County, which are absolutely exquisite, full of lots of gorgeous landscapes. So the great day trips is designed to have seniors take the bus from

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the central populated area of Sonoma County. Outbound, maybe to Sonoma Valley for lunch at the Sonoma Plaza. Right? Or for Calorie Gulch in Occidental Way, have a bus that makes a perfect trip from Santa Ros out toe. Accidental. He was you. Enough time for lunch for

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window shopping out there. I think there's probably four windows to to shop in and to take the bus back, and it winds its way alongside the Russian River through the redwoods back to Santa Rosa. And it's an exquisite day trip, and we have, like six different

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great day trips. We can recommend people take to go out and sightsee using the bus, and it usually entails a lunch in the middle of the trip. And we even recommend that you take your grandchildren out to Duncans Mills and buy a kite out there at

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the kite shop and the ocean breezes air coming in through the valley in Duncans Mills, and it makes for a wonderful day trip. Yes. Listen to us. No muss, no fuss. Joined us on the bus. That's all you have to here. Just remember that, Uh, do

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you have any stories you can tell us about passengers who have requested certain transit services? Right. One of you? Yeah. One of my favorite people with a man called Jacque Korda. Lu, who came from seven California. In fact, his son's name is Bob Kordell Ooh, Who's

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head of the water agency? And Jack retired from the Southern California Gas Company and moved to Sonoma County. He's living in Spring Lake Village, which is a senior housing center out on Montgomery Drive on the east side of Santa Rosa with Jack is a gentleman, and

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he would call Brian and I for weeks and weeks and say, G, I think the people out here really could use your bus system. And so we put some service in to Hiss senior housing complex and lo and behold, I went out there to give them

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a presentation, teach them how to ride the bus. 250 people showed up for my presentation and then Jack the inaugural day. We had 50 people riding the buses and jack or call us up and say Okay, he takes his group on the Great day trips and

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he figures out where he's going to take its group. So he's turned out to be a marvelous guide for the people that live in this complex. And is he a supporter of transit? And his current goal is to get the bus to come through his senior

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housing development every single time. Now it's just a part. Time takes 45 trips a day, and he wants to eight trips a day, and he is so charming it's hard to resist him. But in addition, he hasn't you know he's produced the passengers. He's out there

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telling everybody in the complex to use the bus, and it makes a nice trip for his seniors to go into counting town. It's a perfect shopping trip for them. Thank you, Jack Corner. I can't believe that Brian. I know that there is no mechanic Transit provide

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service to the public into the private schools, but how do you accommodate the school or service? And how do you promote it? Like like in and said each year we usually during the summer. Late spring way started contacting the schools that we provide service to, and

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these are the schools that lie along our routes, and we contact them and say, You know, are your schedules changing what's coming up? And then we start working on our fall schedules really here within the next month or so and, um, we try to link him

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as closely with the school, start in times as we can, and after we have a schedule that works and way feel confident in way, pass it on and and she gets out and promoted to the schools. And so it's the whole process that really starts, Really

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about this time of the year, we're starting to work on the fall school schedules. We talked about this a little bit up at the top here of a program, but give us your figures again. If we recovered this, who rides the centre maturity transit system, and

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how do you compile the information? How do you know this? How do we know that? Well, each one of our buses has Elektronik fare boxes, and they're like a little computer. Every time a passenger gets on on the bus. They deposit their their fair. It's registered,

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the mount is registered, and then the driver inputs what type of passenger it is and what I mean by type. So we have students, seniors, handicapped wheelchairs and so on. And so, at the end of each day, when all the buses return to the yard, the

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computer from each fare box from each buses, it's probed and all comes into a central computer, and we know about 10 o'clock every night. How many people we had riding the bus, how much revenue we brought in by route and, uh, all kinds of data every

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day. We're collecting this, this data, and so we know exactly what happens out there every day, another accolade for the computer industry that that's amazing that you can. You can discern that and it. But it does certainly gives you to a much better ability to deal

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with the future of the transit. If you're knowing no now who is and who isn't using it right, right, right. One of the things that we mentioned earlier you rehabilitated rehabilitated about 12 of the buses just recently, right? Those ones that you mentioned earlier thes air

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12 buses that we purchase back in 1980 and we have put in new wheelchair lifts new windows. These the new windows open and shut. We re opposed to the seats, and the bus rides very quietly in people's concept of transit. If you haven't ridden transit in

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Sonoma County is the thing kind of transit. Find out in San Francisco, which is full of graffiti. It's dirty, it's noisy, and it's not very pretty. The look at will bat is a different picture, appear in Sonoma County of clean, clean buses, and they're quiet on

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the right smoothly, and you just have a feeling that you're being taken care of very nicely. That's really very important. We're just about out of time, and that's very, very important, though The difference between Let's say, the immunity away in San Francisco, which is at all

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kinds of right we're safe were very, very simple. And that's the point. And up here, things are clean. They are safe, securities better. It's a nothing like riding the transit system in a major city Up here, everything that can possibly do is done for you, and

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it is a wonderful way to get cars off the highway. Thank you very much for being with. It's a real pleasure. Okay, Bryan. Nice. Always nice to see you, Ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking with and Daniel and Brian L. B. And their transit specialists. Norma

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County Transit system. A system that is going to have to take a bigger place in your or in my life in the future if we're going to keep having gridlock on our roadways. My name is Richman. Frenchy. Program can be directly with exactly remember the county

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government family related agency to talk more about this kind of living in the Kennedy all love until and tonight. Good health. You can everyone.