River Cities Public Transit was recently award
$520,000 to cement the driveways and parking lot around
its new building.
The grant comes from FTA’s State of Good Repair Bus
and Facilities Discretionary Program of Funds. Ron
Baumgart, executive Director of River Cities Public
Transit, said we built a very functional (not fancy)
addition to our existing building. It was disappointing
to find out we didn’t have enough money in the original
grant to put a hard surface on the parking lot. He also
stated that Tim Johnson was instrumental in his support
of the project. Without his help this grant probably
would not have materialized. RCPT is also very
appreciative of the cooperation from SD DOT for its help
in acquiring the necessary funds to complete the
project. The current building project should be
completed around the first of the New Year; this
includes remodeling of the existing building with
additional office space. Work on the parking lot will be
bid this fall and the work completed next spring.
U.S. Transportation
Secretary LaHood Announces Funding for Creating New Jobs
and Training the Next Generation of Transit Workforce
River Cities Public Transit (RCPT) just received notice
that it will receive a Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
grant for developing a virtual classroom for transit
employees. Secretary Ray LaHood announced in New Orleans
the recipient agencies. River Cities Public Transit is
awarded $275,000 for The Center for Transit eLearning
(C-TEL) project that will develop an accessible,
scalable, and sustainable online learning system that
meets the diverse training needs of transit agency
employees. C-TEL will be built and managed by River
Cities Public Transit in partnership with the Community
Transportation Association of America (CTAA), the
National Transit Institute (NTI), and the Small Urban &
Rural Transit Center (SURTC). C-TEL will use proven
eLearning technology and practices to provide
high-quality, low-cost training solutions to transit
workers regardless of agency location or size.
FTA
announced that with such a excellent group of
applications, United Sates Department of Transportation
(USDOT) chose to increase the original funded amount
from $1 million to $3 million, which has allowed the
funding of more projects than originally planned. FTA
communicated to RCPT that their application was one of
the top projects amidst an extremely competitive pool of
innovative workforce development programs from around
the country.
Ron
Baumgart, Executive Director of River Cities Public
Transit, said he was very excited to get the good news.
Ron further said, “He worked closely with Gary Hegland,
Transit Advisory LLC from Fargo, ND who helped write this
very visionary and innovative idea for transit training
for the future.” This is an 18 month project and when
completed will be available for transit employees all
over the country to access and use.
Three
area transit agencies have agreed to participate in
terms of pilot test facilities for testing the training
activities that are developed in CTEL. They include
Standing Rock Public Transportation managed by Pam
Ternes at Fort Yates ND; Brookings Area Transit
Authority managed by Brenda Schweitzer at Brookings, SD;
and Valley Senior Services managed by Paul Grindeland at
Fargo, ND.
