TRPTA services shut down leaving community wondering what’s next?
The Idaho Falls area bus service is closing its doors. The Targhee Regional Public Transportation Authority (TRPTA) held an emergency meeting on Monday and voted to dissolve the service.
“It was the board’s decision that we needed to dissolve TRPTA because of financial issues,” said Michael O’Bleness, the board chair for TRPTA.
This is after years of monetary troubles.
TRPTA now needs to match dollars in order to get federal funds. A lot of TRPTA’s funding comes from Medicaid non-emergency medical transportation dollars.
“The state of Idaho has been managing those through a broker service for a number of years and through that broker, those funds have decreased,” O’Bleness said.
TRPTA also points out they have been unsuccessful in working with local partners to increase the match dollars.
“During that time period we’ve had to reduce the number of staff in our administration,” O’Bleness said.
The Federal Transit Authority (FTA) insists that TRPTA must have those positions they got rid of.
“When we add those positions TRPTA is operated at a loss and when we eliminate those positions, then we run into problems with the FTA and maintaining our compliance with our rules,” O’Bleness said.
TRPTA said that the recent federal government shutdown also added a factor to shutting down operations.
Right now there is a lot of details TRPTA has still to work out and see how long they can keep different components of its operations. The bus service is asking their partners for help.
“We’ll be working with (Idaho Transportation Department), FTA, cities, counties and our riding public,” O’Bleness said.
It is the riding public who could be the most affected by this change.
“There is a large community of blind people that do rely on the services to get to their jobs, employment, needs, college, education needs, just life events,” said Kevin Pirnie, the first vice-president of the Snake River Valley Chapter National Federation of the Blind.
Not just for the blind, but TRPTA provides transportation for anyone with disabilities or who are medically fragile.
Paul Chambers, a renal social worker at Gem State Regional Dialysis, said he has patients asking what is going to happen next.
“We have a number of patients at our unit here in Idaho Falls, as well as Rexburg, and these patients this is for some their only motive of transportation and so it really is an invaluable service,” Chambers said.
For those that use the service, it’s hard to imagine a world without it.
“It will put a strain on either extended family or organizations to get these people two and from their medical appointments,” Chambers said. “If those individuals don’t qualify for Medicaid, TRPTA has been the resource that has been great for those individuals because its a very cost-effective way to get to and from their medical appointments.”
TRPTA said it will keep the public updated on its webpage with weekly updates. Items could include the shutdown plan and how it might evolve.
It is unclear how much longer TRPTA buses will operate. The dissolution is expected to be 90 days.
