Specifically, Danville Transit has adopted innovative technologies to make it easier and more user-friendly than ever to ride the bus…and all it takes is a click of your smartphone! Read on to learn more!
The Danville Transit App
If you wanted to use Danville Transit’s Reserve-a-Ride or Handivan services, it used to be that you were required to make a telephone reservation. Now, you have the ability to reserve one of these two services using the new Danville Transit app. To download the free app, operated by Ecolane USA, Inc., simply download it on your smartphone’s app store. Once you do that and you open the app, you’ll be asked to provide some basic information such as your name, email, and phone number, as well as to input your login credentials. You’ll also be asked whether or not you use a medical aid device such as a wheelchair, a foldable wheelchair, crutches, a scooter, etc.
At this point, you’ll be able to book a trip through the Reserve-a-Ride program, which will cost $4.00. If you wish to utilize the Handivan service for a $2.00 fee, you’ll need to be approved by Danville Transit first. The accompanying screenshot serves as an example of how to enter your pick-up point, your drop-off point, and the time you wish to be picked up into the app.
“Smart” Bus Stop Signs
In addition to launching the new app, Danville Transit recently installed new bus stop signs all around the city that enable riders to view stop-specific bus schedules and to view bus locations in real time. An example of an instruction the signs offer to riders is as follows: “For arrival times for this bus stop text SIGN 238 to 24541.” Once a rider does this, they will instantly receive by text a roster of the scheduled times the buses associated with each route arrive at that particular stop.
In addition to bus arrival information, shown on the image at right, each of the signs features a QR code that will enable riders to use their smartphones to view the location of the buses they’re waiting for in real time. The referenced image shows the appearance of a typical Danville Transit bus stop sign that has recently been installed (left).
Immediately to the right of the image of the bus stop information sign is the image which is presented when the QR code is scanned. This image depicts the real-time location of a bus a rider may be waiting for. To learn more about Danville Transit, its route network, the services it offers, and a variety of other information about the agency, please visit https://www.danville-va.gov/508/Mass-Transit.
Whether you’re using Danville Transit’s traditional (fixed-route) bus system, Reserve-a-Ride, or the agency’s Handivan service, don’t forget to log your trip into the RIDE Solutions app to earn points toward discounts on shopping, dining, activities, and services, or to use your points to enter raffles to win gift cards. If you don’t yet have the app, simply visit www.ridesolutions.org, where you can download and use the app for free.
RIDE Solutions is part of ConnectingVA, a division of DRPT, which serves as a statewide resource for commuters. ConnectingVA presents a roster of regional commuter assistance programs throughout the Commonwealth, as well as a query of transportation services available by locality. Please learn more about ConnectingVA by visiting https://connectingva.drpt.virginia.gov/.
]]>That’s right, if you carpool or use the Martinsville/Danville shuttle at least once – and log the trip in the RIDE Solutions app – to get to Rooster Walk this year, you’ll be entered to win two tickets to next year’s Rooster Walk event!
Event Information
Rooster Walk Inc. invites you to Rooster Walk 13 from Thursday, May 25 – Sunday, May 28 to enjoy great live music from six stages with great time outdoors! Join in the Rooster Walk Music & Arts Festival that pays tribute to two close friends – Edwin “the Rooster” Penn and Walker Shank, who both departed this world while in their 20s; your admission fee helps fund the “Penn-Shank Memorial Scholarship Fund” for exceptional Martinsville High School seniors.
The four-day event will feature many bands such as Sneezy, The Lil Smokies, The Marshall Tucker Band, Christina Vane, Sol Driven Train, Sanctum Sully, Rob Cheatham & Company, Kelsey Waldon, and many others!
This year’s Rooster Walk tickets are available at https://roosterwalk.com/ for up to four days for live music and other events such as a Kids’ Coop, Teen Scene, healing arts, and more!
Website: https://roosterwalk.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roosterwalk/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roosterwalk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/roosterwalk
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@roosterwalk
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7bdIK2utLRBaGL3b8crjVA?si=418f8db6d304420d&nd=1
Contact information is available on the website, https://roosterwalk.com/.
Logistics and Giveaways
When you log at least one carpool trip or a trip on the Rooster Walk shuttle from Martinsville or Danville into the RIDE Solutions app rather than driving alone, you’ll be automatically entered to win two tickets to next year’s (2024) Rooster Walk event!
The section below entitled “Signing up and Logging Trips” provides step-by-step instructions to properly log your trip, or, if you’re not yet a RIDE Solutions member, to sign up for free!
Carpool
The section below, entitled “Signing up and Logging Trips,” will show you how to connect with one or more people to carpool with to Rooster Walk. Carpooling will not only save you money on your drive, but is great for the environment, and leaves the driving and parking to someone else.
Shuttle
To reduce the number of vehicles that travel to the event and to provide additional convenience to its guests, the Rooster Walk team operates a free shuttle service from both Martinsville and Danville to the event venue at Pop’s Farm. This year, shuttles will operate between Pop’s Farm (the event venue) and the following locations in Danville and Martinsville:
For additional information about the shuttle, including times of operation, please visit https://roosterwalk.com/directions-shuttles/.
Signing up and Logging Trips (Prize Eligibility)
To be eligible to win the two tickets to the 2024 Rooster Walk Music & Arts Festival, you’ll need to register for RIDE Solutions (if you’re not already a member) and record at least one carpool or event shuttle trip using the RIDE Solutions app; both of these are free to do. A step-by-step guide to register and log your trips follows.
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How do I qualify?
First, I’ll tell you how you can participate in Bike Month to win the prize – which will be a gift card – and I’ll tell you what types of cycling trips qualify. Many of you have already downloaded the RIDE Solutions app, which is what you’ll need to qualify to win. If you don’t yet have the app, simply go to our website, www.ridesolutions.org, click “Login/Create Account,” select “Join,” and then enter your first and last name, your email, and create a password. That’s it! Shortly afterward, you should receive an email that asks you for your address so that the app can easily identify routes to enable you to bike or walk from home to your destination, or so it can identify ride-matches for you if you would like to carpool. The app is completely free, both to download from your app store – as either an android or iPhone app – and to use once you’ve downloaded it.
Any time during this month of May, bicycle somewhere for a purpose other than simply a recreational bike ride. For example, biking to and from work, the store, a doctor’s appointment, to visit a friend or family member, to school, or anything similar, qualifies. When you complete your trip, log it into the RIDE Solutions app by selecting the following: Trips–Record a Trip—Mode—Bike—Origin and Destination. That’s it! As long as you log at least one trip by bicycle into the app during the month of May, you are automatically entered to win a gift card at the end of the month, courtesy of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT)!
Later in this article, I’ll explain to you another excellent benefit of using this app.
Bike to Work Week in the NRV (New River Valley), and Bike to Work Day
If you live in the New River Valley, which includes Floyd, Giles, Montgomery, and Pulaski Counties, as well as the City of Radford, the New River Valley Regional Commission (NRVRC), which administers the RIDE Solutions program in that region, runs a unique campaign for Bike to Work Week. According to the NRVRC:
— Ride Solutions is sponsoring a Bike to Work Week Challenge from May 19 to May 25. We’re keeping the challenge simple to make it accessible to anyone who can ride a bike for some part of their commute – everyone who tracks at least one bike trip to work on the RIDE Solutions app during the week-long challenge will be entered to win prizes including a gift card and RIDE Solutions swag!
Participants can sign up for free through the Ride Solutions app to log trips. More about the challenge and links to the app downloads can be found here: https://ridesolutions.org/bike-nrv/. This page includes some tips to make the bike commute easier.
Ride Solutions staff are also available to give a boost to employer promotion efforts, if you’re interested in organizing a specific internal challenge or activity. We also have a flyer and poster available to help promote the event at your site; you’ll find this Employer’s Toolkit attached and at the link above. If you do use these, please let us know – we enjoy hearing what everyone is doing to participate and celebrate the bike as transportation!
And please share any events you have scheduled to celebrate Bike Month or the Bike to Work Week; we’d love to link to it. Send the URL to us and we’ll add it to the growing list of events planned around the New River Valley.
Mark your calendars now! The challenge starts on Bike to Work Day, Friday, May 19. We’ll announce the prize drawing winner on May 25. —
Please note that the New River Valley’s campaign is not raffling off a separate gift card from the one that will be raffled off throughout the RIDE Solutions service area, but this event is a great opportunity to win that gift card! In addition, you’ll have the opportunity to win some RIDE Solutions swag through that program’s campaign.
If you’re more comfortable biking just once as part of your commute this month just to see how you like it, consider biking on Bike to Work Day, which is Friday, May 19th. To learn more about Bike to Work Day, including its history and other information, please visit https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-bike-to-work-day-third-friday-in-may/.
Now, please read on to learn how using your bike instead of driving for local travel is beneficial for the environment, but especially for you!
Why should I ride my bike instead of drive?
Why bicycle, anyway? An avid cyclist could give you a number of great reasons to do so. However, most of us would not consider ourselves avid cyclists, though we may occasionally go for a bike ride, while others may not have not been on a bike in years. You may want to bike because:
I can attest to this last point, given that I once lived about a half-mile from a rail trail in my former community, and I sometimes biked this route to my job at a local supermarket. While my bike was not nearly as fast as my car, the route, along the trail, was more direct, and I did not have to sit in traffic or wait at many traffic lights. Driving took perhaps 15 minutes, while bicycling took just a few minutes more – perhaps 20 minutes. At the same time, I was getting a free workout and saved gas money and wear-and-tear on my car.
More about the RIDE Solutions app
In addition to serving as a tool to log your trips so that you’ll be eligible to win a gift card at the end of the month, the RIDE Solutions app does so much more! It will help you to find the best route between your home and destination, whether you bike, walk, or take transit (the bus). If you wish to find someone with whom to carpool, the app will do that for you as well. For either of these options, select “Rides” on the app, choose the purpose for your trip: commute (work or school), event or destination, or a single trip such as to go shopping. Next, enter your starting point and destination, which can be either a specific address, a road, or a city or town. After this, choose the transportation mode you plan to use (transit, carpool, bike, or walk), and you’ll be shown a route with step-by-step directions. If you are looking for a carpool partner, the app will show you whether there are any carpoolers along your route, whom you can contact through the app. The accompanying image is a screenshot of the app, which depicts a theoretical trip from Liberty University to the Lynchburg Amtrak station, using the assumption that a student plans to bike from the university to the station as part of their trip home.
Another great feature of the RIDE Solutions app is the rewards you’ll accumulate just for using alternative transportation, whether that includes carpooling, vanpooling, bicycling, walking, using transit, or even teleworking instead of traveling at all. Each time you log a trip using one of these modes, you’ll earn 100 points; to begin with, you’ll earn 1,000 points as a gift just for registering! You can redeem these points for discounts on shopping (including online shopping), dining, activities/entertainment, and services. If you prefer, you can even use your points to enter a monthly raffle for the chance to win a gift card. Again, the app can be downloaded at www.ridesolutions.org.
ConnectingVA
To learn more about bicycling resources, we at RIDE Solutions encourage you to visit the ConnectingVA site, which is managed by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT). This resource will provide you with additional information showing you how to earn rewards for your bicycle commute, how to pair your cycling trips with public transit, bike share programs that may be available in your area, trails in Virginia, bike safety tips, and much, much more. To access this page, please visit https://connectingva.drpt.virginia.gov/bike/.
[1] “Health Benefits of Cycling and Do’s and Don’ts.” Cleveland Clinic. June 6, 2022. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/benefits-of-cycling/.
[2] Arthurs-Brennan, Michelle. “Why cycling is great for your legs, lungs, immune system and mind, plus 11 other great benefits of life on two wheels.” Cycling Weekly. November 18, 2022. https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/benefits-of-cycling-334144.
[3] “Drive Less, Bike More.” The League of American Bicyclists.” Retrieved May 3, 2023. https://bikeleague.org/events/drive-less-bike-more/.
[4] “Drive Less, Bike More.” The League of American Bicyclists.” Retrieved May 3, 2023.
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FAST Track is a trade show that is typically hosted on an annual basis by the Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce to enable companies and organizations to promote their products and services. FAST Track returned for the first time after a multi-year hiatus due to the Covid pandemic. Situated on the third floor of the Clock Tower building in Martinsville, the event hosted dozens of organizations and companies, small and large on the evenings of March 7th and 8th.
Among the organizations present was, of course, RIDE Solutions. As a representative of RIDE Solutions, I had the pleasure to meet many wonderful people from across our region to tell them about the program. We had a number of promotional items on-hand including pens, sticky notes, “no contact” keychains, fans, and brochures.
About RIDE Solutions
RIDE Solutions is the region’s commuter assistance program. We promote carpooling, vanpooling, transit use, bicycling and walking as modes of travel, as well as telework. One misconception I learned about during FAST Track was that we directly provide transportation. Actually, what we do is facilitate carpools through our RIDE Solutions app, and we provide incentives for people to carpool, vanpool, use transit, telework, or bike or walk as means of travel. We also publicize some great resources available to our region that sometimes get overlooked, such as our regional transit agencies and vanpool access through our partner, Commute with Enterprise.
The App
The RIDE Solutions app is available for free download and free use (since RIDE Solutions is publicly-funded), and you can register for it by visiting our website, www.ridesolutions.org. Once at our website, select “Login/Create Account.” Then, you’ll be asked to provide your first and last name, your email, and you’ll create a password.
In our region, carpooling is a popular form of alternative transportation, given that many areas are spread out, commutes can be a bit lengthy, and few transportation options are available in most areas outside the cities of Danville and Martinsville. If you wish to carpool, this app is an exceptional tool to enable you to do that, as one of its main functions is carpool-matching. The carpool-matching function works like this:
The other major function of the app is to manage the incentives that you’ll be eligible for after taking trips or teleworking. Each time you take a trip (carpool, vanpool, transit, walk, bike, or telework), you’ll need to “log” your trip or telework session into the app or through your online account by logging in, selecting “Trips,” and selecting “Record Trip.” Each time you log a trip, you’ll accumulate 100 points toward incentives, on top of the 1,000 points you get for free just for signing up.
So, what kinds of incentives do your green commutes and telework sessions get you? They include the following:
Can RIDE Solutions help your company or organization with its employees’ transportation needs?
Yes, we absolutely can serve as a great (and free) resource to help your business or organization’s employees with transportation needs! If you manage a business or organization, we encourage you to publicize our services (www.ridesolutions.org) to your staff, to provide them additional transportation resources, while improving the overall reliability of your workforce. We also maintain a partnership with Commute with Enterprise (the rental car company), to whom we can refer you for more information and/or help you to expedite a vanpool program. Furthermore, if you or your team would like to meet with me, I’d be happy to stop by, tell you a bit more about our program, and even work with you to organize a presentation or a sign-up event for your employees.
Questions I received at FAST Track
One question I was hearing while at FAST Track was whether our services extend beyond Martinsville and Henry County. The answer to that is yes! RIDE Solutions covers all of the West Piedmont Region, which includes Martinsville and Henry County, Danville and Pittsylvania County, and Franklin and Patrick Counties. Our service area goes well beyond this region, however. In addition to the West Piedmont Region, RIDE Solutions serves the Roanoke Valley, the New River Valley, and the Lynchburg region. So, you can use the app to carpool from Martinsville to Roanoke, Danville to Lynchburg, or Stuart to Christiansburg. Additionally, RIDE Solutions is under the umbrella of ConnectingVA, which is a statewide commuting platform that uses the same app system as RIDE Solutions, so you can commute anywhere in the state, carpool match, and earn incentives. Learn more about ConnectingVA by visiting https://connectingva.drpt.virginia.gov/.
Another question I received was whether RIDE Solutions can be used across state lines, such as between Virginia and North Carolina. The answer to that is yes, as long as one end of the trip is in Virginia.
In conclusion
Again, I encourage you to learn more about RIDE Solutions by visiting www.ridesolutions.org. For any questions, please feel free to contact me, Joe Bonanno, RIDE Solutions Regional Coordinator, at Jbonanno@wppdc.org or by phone, at (276) 638-3987. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you!
]]>Perhaps you’ve seen the colorful Virginia Breeze buses passing through Martinsville or Danville early in the morning or during late afternoon/early evening and have wondered if they were some sort of charter operation just passing through. It would be nice if Greyhound served us, you may have thought. Another thought that may have come to mind might have been whether such a service could ever exist, or could even be feasible. The truth is, Greyhound did serve Danville until about 2016, at which time it ended service there.
While Greyhound no longer provides inter-city bus services to the West Piedmont Region, the Virginia Breeze, through a partnership between Megabus and the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT), does!
The Virginia Breeze operates two separate routes in our region – the Capital Connector and the Piedmont Express.
The Capital Connector begins in Martinsville, from which it travels east to Danville; to South Boston; Farmville; Richmond; and Washington, D.C. The Piedmont Express begins in Danville and travels north, along the U.S. Route 29 corridor, to destinations such as Lynchburg; Charlottesville; Culpeper; Dulles International Airport; and Washington, D.C.; among a variety of smaller localities in-between. The following tables show both the “From” and “To” schedules of the Capital Connector and the Piedmont Express between Martinsville, Danville, and Washington, D.C.
An important item to note is that while the Capital Connector, which departs Martinsville, does not travel along U.S. Route 29 or to Dulles International Airport, you’ll be able to transfer from the Capital Connector to the Piedmont Express (which travels along the U.S. Route 29 corridor and to Dulles International Airport), which departs Danville about 30 minutes after it arrives there.
Amenities
All buses have been configured with modern amenities to make your trip comfortable and to enable you to enjoy your trip. In addition to roomy seats and a restroom, buses are served with Wi-Fi and outlets to enable you to plug in your personal devices.
Fares and baggage policies
According to the Virginia Breeze website, fares range from $15 to $60, meaning that the Breeze is an affordable means of traveling throughout Virginia – and it may even be less expensive than driving, particularly when wear-and-tear is factored in. The Virginia Breeze allows one free checked bag and one carry-on that fits above the seat.
Route performance
The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT), which operates the Virginia Breeze, maintains an Open Data Portal, showing a variety of performance measures for the Breeze, among other transportation services. The Capital Connector, which serves both the Cities of Martinsville and Danville, has shown a steady increase in ridership from both locations over a period of one year, according to the following graph entitled “Capital Connector Monthly Boardings from Danville and Martinsville.” Even so, ridership appears to fluctuate based on the time of year.
The following graph, entitled “Piedmont Express Monthly Boardings from Danville,” shows a similar trend of growth over time, though as is the case with the Capital Connector, ridership fluctuates based on month.
One certainty about riding either the Capital Connector or the Piedmont Express is that you’ll almost certainly have plenty of room to stretch out and to social distance, especially if you’re concerned about avoiding illnesses, particularly during the winter. If you were to ride the Capital Connector in August of 2022, for instance, there would have only be an average of about 19 passengers per day, which means that there is plenty of room on these buses – meaning that right now, you should not have to worry about booked trips.
Where do I pick up the bus?
In Martinsville, the Capital Connector stops at the Village of Martinsville shopping center, along Commonwealth Boulevard; this is where Kroger, Marshalls, and Belk are all located. However, you’ll want to make sure you’re not on the wrong side of the plaza when the bus arrives. The bus arrives in the large parking lot to the left (west) of Belk department store – between Belk and Goodwill, toward the back end of the lot. You’ll see a sign for the Virginia Breeze mounted on a light pole. See the map below for the approximate location of the bus stop.
In Danville, you can pick up both the Capital Connector and the Piedmont Express at the Danville Transit System Hub, located at 515 Spring Street in Danville’s River District. See the map below for a detailed location.
For additional information about the Virginia Breeze, and to purchase tickets online, please visit https://virginiabreeze.org/.
If you currently or plan to carpool, vanpool, use transit (for work or non-work trips), walk, or bike to your destinations, or if you telework, don’t forget to become a RIDE Solutions member for FREE by signing up at www.ridesolutions.org! Each time you log a carpool, vanpool, transit, walk, or bike trip, or a telework session, you’ll earn points toward discounts on shopping (including online shopping), dining, services, and activities, or you can use your points to enter raffles to win gift cards!
RIDE Solutions is a division of Commute!VA, a Virginia statewide resource for commuters, which is operated by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT).
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Recently while on a conference call with PART staff and officials from Martinsville and Henry County, I was briefed on some updates to the service that will be beneficial to our region.
Other important points are summarized in the following two bullet points.
The days and hours of PART’s operations are Monday – Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and again, the fares remain suspended at this time. All buses are wheelchair-accessible, and the bus driver may deviate up to ¾-mile from the route for disabled persons, with 24-hours advanced notice.
The PART system consists of three routes: the Martinsville Route, the North County (Collinsville) Route, and the Southern Route. Riders can easily transfer from one route to another, as each bus converges simultaneously at WalMart/Lowe’s Home Center in Martinsville for this very purpose.
Stops located along the three routes are shown in the table below, while a system-wide route map is shown immediately below it. For information, including route schedules, please visit https://radartransit.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2022-PART-route-brochure.pdf.
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Your commute trips are like money in the bank with RIDE Solutions. Connect with carpools or vanpools with your colleagues. Let us know if this sounds good to you, by taking this survey! and Thank you
]]>For the purpose of this campaign, ridesharing refers to two or more individuals sharing a vehicle to commute to a general or specific location for work or school (college, university, etc.), and can include either carpooling or vanpooling. Whenever a RIDE Solutions member logs at least one rideshare trip during the month of October, that member will be automatically entered into a drawing to win a $100 gift card, which will be awarded by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT).
RIDE Solutions Membership and the App
If you’re already a RIDE Solutions member, you most likely already have and use the RIDE Solutions app, and are likely familiar with its basic functions. However, you may not yet be a RIDE Solutions member yet, and if that’s the case, it’s free to join with no obligations or costs, aside from perhaps chipping in for gas money or to pay for a vanpool. Simply visit our website, www.ridesolutions.org, and select “Login/Create Account.” At that point, just provide your first and last name, your email address, and a password, and that’s it! You can update your profile later.
How to Find Someone to Carpool with Using the RIDE Solutions App
If you are already carpooling with someone, keep doing what you’re doing, but don’t forget to log your trips! However, if you would like to find one or more carpool partners to share your commute with, our app is designed to match you with other RIDE Solutions members going your way! To do this, just follow these steps:
Vanpool
You may wish to become part of a vanpool, and in this case please keep in mind that only one official vanpool currently services the RIDE Solutions service area. This vanpool, operated by Commute with Enterprise, travels between Blacksburg and Salem, and may stop at locations in between, such as Christiansburg. If you wish to ride with this vanpool, simply follow the steps above, but instead of clicking on the car icon, click on the van icon. Vanpooling is becoming a more popular option for commuters here in Virginia, and it is likely that additional vanpools will begin in the near future. However, if you’d like to start a vanpool, please contact the RIDE Solutions program in your area to find out how.
Logging Your Trips
In order to be eligible to win the gift card, you’ll need to log your trips into the RIDE Solutions app. Again, you’ll need to log a minimum of one trip during this month of October to be automatically entered for a chance to win. To log your trips, sign into the app, and then select “Trips,” followed by “Record a Trip,” after which you’ll simply follow the prompts from there.
In addition to the chance to win a gift card, each time you log a trip or a telework session in the app, you’ll earn 100 points that you can use for discounts on shopping (brick and mortar or online shopping), dining, activities, and services. You can instead use your accumulated points to enter periodic raffles to win great prizes such as gift cards. When you initially create a RIDE Solutions account, you’ll automatically be awarded 1,000 points – an equivalent of 10 trips – to give you a head-start. Again, to register to become a RIDE Solutions member, visit www.ridesolutions.org.
Commute!VA Resources
Commute!VA is a program provided by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT), which manages a website offering resources to commuters as well as employers. The site’s link at the top entitled “Find Rides,” will present you with an interactive map that you can use to find the commuter assistance program that serves your community in Virginia. The “Commuters” link will provide you with information about a variety of transportation modes to get around, and ways in which you can access them. The “Employers” link provides informational resources to employers with regard to employer-based commuter programs. Commute!VA can be accessed at https://commuteva.org/.
]]>Benefits of Transit Use
Discover Transit Month is an excellent opportunity for you, your family members, and your coworkers to rediscover transit in your community. With higher gas prices and inflation in general, this month of September is a great opportunity to put the keys away and save money. According to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), transit use can save a household almost $10,000 along with having one fewer vehicle. According to APTA, typical households spend 16 cents of every dollar on transportation, with most of this share allocated to costs to operate personal vehicles, which typically include gas, maintenance, insurance, and wear-and-tear. Yet another benefit of using transit is that someone else does the driving, allowing you to rest, catch up on work, or make a new friend.
Prizes
And now for the good part: prizes! The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) is administering two separate drawings for the Discover Transit Month campaign. The first is a sweepstakes, through which you will make a pledge to try transit or to continue using it (if you currently do so). Two entries will be selected, with the prize for one being two round-trip tickets for the Virginia Breeze intercity bus service, and the other being two round-trip tickets aboard Amtrak’s Northeast Regional rail service. One entry will be selected for each prize. For rules and entry information, please visit https://transitva.org/.
The second prize will be a $100 gift card. To enter the raffle for this gift card, you simply log at least one transit trip into the RIDE Solutions app during the month of September, as you would for a carpool trip, a telework session, or bike or walk trip. If you are not yet a member of RIDE Solutions, it’s free and very easy to join. Simply go to our website, www.ridesolutions.org, and click “Login/Create Account.” Once you do this, you’ll be asked to provide your first and last name, your email address, and a password. That’s it!
Aside from the transit raffle, every time you log a non-single-occupancy vehicle trip into the app, which includes transit, carpool, vanpool, walking, or bicycling commute or non-commute trips (such as those to the store, doctor’s appointment, entertainment venue, etc.) or a telework session, you’ll earn 100 points toward discounts on shopping, dining, activities, or services, or a chance to enter a raffle to win a gift card. You also get awarded 1,000 free points just to sign up!
Your Local Transit Agency and Additional Transit Resources
This section of the blog will inform you about which transit agencies serve your community, the types of services offered, the fares and operating hours, and the website. This section organized smaller regions served by Planning District Commissions, and includes Central Virginia (Lynchburg Region), the New River Valley, the Roanoke Valley, and the West Piedmont Region.
Another great resource for you to reference, which will provide additional information about public transit agencies throughout the State, as well as transportation resources for disabled individuals, senior citizens, and veterans, is Transit!VA, managed by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT). This site, referenced earlier in this blog, will provide you additional information about Discover Transit Month, including the online form by which to enter the Discover Transit Month Sweepstakes. Transit!VA will provide you with additional information about public transit agencies across the Commonwealth, as well as transportation resources for disabled individuals, senior citizens, and veterans.
Central Virginia Region
New River Valley
Roanoke Valley
West Piedmont Region
]]>About two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Association for Commuter Transportation’s (ACT) 2022 International Conference, held August 1st through 3rd in Chicago. In this blog, I will describe some of the highlights of the conference, while the next blog will focus on some of what I found impressive and inspiring about the City of Chicago itself.
For anyone who has attended a conference, you’ll know that they generally consist of large gatherings of people who meet up for a series of workshops, presentations, or “breakout sessions” to learn about the most innovative trends of particular industries or institutions. The duration of these conferences is typically anywhere from one day to about a week. I attended three of the four days of the conference – the main part of it – which took place at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Chicago.
While at the conference, I had the opportunity to meet the founder and staff members of Agile Mile, the company that operates our RIDE Solutions app, which many of you are familiar with. Speaking of the app, don’t forget to log your non-single-occupancy vehicle trips to earn points toward discounts on shopping (brick and mortar, as well as online), dining, activities, and services – or use your points to enter raffles to win gift cards! If you haven’t done so yet, download the RIDE Solutions app at www.ridesolutions.org today!
I attended a variety of interesting sessions over the several days of the conference, and some of the sessions and themes which stood out to me included the following:
The vanpool sessions I participated in were presented by representatives of the Salem (Oregon) Area Mass Transit District, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, and Commute with Enterprise. Some of the highlights of vanpooling include the following:
A second very interesting and relevant topic is a concept known as DEI, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. DEI, in the context of the commuting industry, emphasizes the most effective channels by which to conduct outreach, particularly for underserved communities. This topic was mainly presented by Dezra Nauls, of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas.
According to the presentation, some strategies to conduct effective community outreach include the following:
Bicycling/Bike to Work Events
Another prevalent topic that I found very interesting and relevant was effective bike-to-work strategies. One initiative took place in the Washington, D.C. area, while the other took place in San Diego. These topics were presented by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the O’Donnell Company, and Steer (consultant to San Diego Association of Governments). Highlights of the presentation included the following:
Metro Washington, D.C.
San Diego