June 2004
Des Moines Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Central Iowa Rideshare, in cooperation with the Transportation Management Association (TMA), announced today the launch of a web-based, online ridematching service that allows commuters to locate potential carpool and vanpool partners in an instant. The new service is a valuable, free service for central Iowa residents interested in saving money, time and reducing the stress...
We have just received a copy of a letter from the CEO of Greyhound to Governor Vilsack announcing that, as of August 18th, Greyhound will restructure its intercity bus service and discontinue serving 260 cities in their “northern region,” including 13 cities in Iowa. The Iowa communities listed for abandonment include: Ames, Anita, Dubuque, Dyersville, Marshalltown, Newton, Onawa, Shenandoah, Sioux...
Partial Release of IA-03-0103 Earlier I forwarded a copy of Senator Harkin’s announcement of the partial release of our FY04 state-wide transit capital grant under FTA’s 5309 program. I meant to label that e-mail as a “Transit Update,” but forgot to do so. In that earlier announcement I included a copy of the listing of projects that are funded in...
Attached are the final scores for each contestant competing in the van, small bus, or large bus division of the 18th annual IPTA/IDOT bus roadeo Saturday, June 5th, 2004 in Cedar Falls. Press releases have gone out to the media and should be posted on our Web site yet this afternoon under "Hot News". If you have specific questions about...
AMES, Iowa - The Iowa Department of Transportation's Office of Public Transit announced that eight of Iowa's public transit systems and one DOT staff member were recently presented awards by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Mohktee Ahmad, FTA Region 7 Regional Administrator based in Kansas City, Mo., presented the following awards at a ceremony last week: Award of Excellence City...
AMES, Iowa – The Iowa Department of Transportation and Iowa Public Transit Association (IPTA) held a banquet June 4 in Cedar Falls to present awards to 17 bus operators from around the state. As part of the IPTA/DOT annual bus roadeo, the banquet honored bus operators that had been nominated to receive this special recognition. Qualifying factors for recipients included...
Copy of OPT Presentation from Wednesday, June 2nd Attached is a copy of the PowerPoint presentation used by the Office of Public Transit for our Wednesday afternoon session at the Spring Transit Training Conference last week in Waterloo. If you have any questions about items presented, feel free to contact the OPT staff person involved. Programming of Peerpool Funds Following...
Attached are two more handouts from our presentation(s) to last week’s transit training conference. The first is the illustration of the proposed alternative formula for the State Transit Assistance program, that came out of the STA Study Committee process. The illustration was not available on Wednesday afternoon during our presentation, but was distributed and explained on Friday, during the IPTA...
AMES, Iowa – Two transit systems have been honored by the Iowa Department of Transportation for their accomplishments during the 2003 fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2003. The City of Ames’ CyRide was recognized as the most improved urban transit system of the year. North Iowa Area Regional Transit System –Region 2 (NIARTS), based in Mason City, was acknowledged...
To date there has been no action on programming the use of the 20% of formula funds that are pooled for programming by the various peer groups, including the 5310/5311 recipients group, the 5307 Governor’s Apportionment group, and the three peer groups from urbanized areas over 200,000 population (Des Moines, Quad Cities, and Council Bluffs). Back in December, it was...