The Route Ahead | May 2020 | Community Transit News

Thank You, Essential Workers

Essential workers such as grocery store workers, healthcare workers and transit workers have continued to work throughout the pandemic. We want to thank all essential workers, including our own, for keeping our communities moving. In April, we created a video to share and show gratitude for essential workers that continue to work to support their communities. Recently we’ve partnered with other transit agencies to air a condensed version of this video on local television.

During this time, we’ve received comments from workers who rely on Community Transit service for essential travel to get them to their jobs. A grocery store worker named Melanie reached out on social media to share her story. To read more about Melanie and her perspective as an essential worker who relies on public transit, visit https://bit.ly/39UzqjO.

Essential travel has also meant that our ridership levels have changed as some people are working from home and are not currently using our services. As the state moves towards reopening, we invite riders currently working from home and riders that continue to rely on public transit due to their essential jobs to take the survey mentioned below.

Let Us Know What You Think About Using Transit During COVID-19

During the COVID-19 crisis, many people stopped using transit. In coordination with the governor’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy orders, Community Transit urged riders to use transit only for essential trips.

As the state begins to reopen, the transit agency wants to know what those essential riders and others think about transit service.

Community Transit has launched a survey for customers and community members who want to provide feedback. To take the survey, please visit: https://prr.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ebMlYei82yZ69AF?recruit=nl.

To read more about what Community Transit has done to increase safety in response to COVID-19, visit https://bit.ly/SurveyCTSvsCovid.

Support Local, Shop Local

Local businesses are vital to our local economy and our communities. Shopping local is a great way to support businesses in the community that may be adapting to a new way of doing business. Shopping local also means supporting your local government and public services like Community Transit. 

To help connect patrons and local businesses, we’ve gathered a list of local business resources and the bus routes that connect to them. To connect with local options for take-out, shopping and more, visit https://www.communitytransit.org/support-local.

Community Transit CEO Emmett Heath shares his thoughts in each issue of The Route Ahead

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt in every corner of our community and across every industry, including public transportation. Throughout this incredibly challenging time, we have continued to operate an essential service to our community. We are committed to transporting those who rely on transit for essential jobs, appointments and services.

Our focus continues to be on the health and safety of our employees and their families, and our customers. With that as our guide, our agency and workforce acted early and decisively to implement a number of actions.

To protect our drivers, we temporarily suspended fare collection and closed off the front section of our buses except for riders with mobility concerns. Fare suspension remains in place through June 30 on all but our Swift routes, where riders pay at the station before they board.

To protect our riders, we have instituted social distancing on our buses by closing off seats and running extra buses on high ridership routes. We also urge all riders to wear face coverings while riding the bus, and to be mindful of washing their hands often. If you are sick, please stay home.

We continue to disinfect our buses daily, valuing safety above all, as we plan for the next phases of operations.

Our agency was among the first to implement supplemental and additional paid leave and benefit programs to ensure continuity for employee pay and benefits. We encouraged employees with symptoms, employees with underlying health conditions, and employees with family members with symptoms or school age children to care for to remain at home on paid status to keep themselves and their families safe and healthy. A third of our workforce was encouraged to work from remote locations.

As ridership has declined, we have cut service by over 30%. We will be evaluating sustainable service levels going forward in order to provide the most service possible to riders who need us most for essential travel, especially during times like these. We will have to adjust for the impacts of this global pandemic and we are prepared as best we can be to navigate this virus event. Please visit communitytransit.org/coronavirus for more information.