CLEARLAKE— Lake Transit Authority (LTA) at their Sep 13 meeting at the Clearlake Senior Center heard updates from the transportation agency’s Lake Links, its program manager, as well as from Paratransit Services’ report on its activities like the Ride Links and Pay-Your-Pal programs.
During the public expression part of the meeting there was discussion over the fact that Google Maps is not in synch with Clearlake public transportation, causing a lot of problems to the community, which relies on the information provided by the traditional app. Riders expressed concerns over having to deal with the frustration of waiting at the bus stops for buses that never arrive.
“Google Maps does not update that fast. It takes a few days to happen, so we put our information into a company called Trillium and then they export it out to the world. Google Maps, Apple Maps, the Transit app, those other agencies, get that information and they update their system. It takes anywhere from two to three business days usually to update that once we export it. I can export it at any time, but if it’s just going to be one run for one day, then there’s no point in going on there canceling it because, by the time it gets up on Google Maps, it’s back in service,” said LTA program manager, James Sookne.
According to Sookne, the best thing to do “is probably to call dispatch. However, if the bus is not there, dispatch can tell you where the bus is, which doesn’t really help you if it’s already past your stop, but in terms of Google, there’s no way to update that fast. The Transit app will show that also. Google Maps for our system doesn’t show it. It will give you predictions in terms of the bus should be there in a few minutes or whatnot, but the Transit app will actually show your bus coming down the route.”
Paratransit Services, represented by its general manager, Johnnie Lindsey, said in their report that 300 passengers have been consistently added. “As far as incidents, we did have quite a few calls that involved law enforcement or ambulance calls. Most of them seemed to be related to the heat, some appeared confused, dizzy… Nothing too major seriously involving transit itself. We had a few complaints and we were counseling some of the drivers to mitigate those in the future. We’re also moving along with our bus repairs. We have a few that will be ready and up and running by the end of the month. By October, we should be in very good shape,” she said.
Lake Links creates programs for low-income seniors and people with disabilities. The agency has currently two of them: Pay-Your-Pal, a mileage reimbursement program where seniors keep track of everywhere they go every month and then they get reimbursed for their mileage and they pass it on to their drivers; and Ride Links, for people that don’t have a driver that they can reimburse.
“Pay-Your-Pal is a very popular program and a lot of people take advantage of it. We have three new riders since August 2. Usually, we’re getting at least half a dozen new riders every month,” said Laurie Fisher, program manager at Lake Links.
“We are recruiting volunteers now for Ride Links. We have about six new drivers for this program and last week I enrolled five brand new riders. We’re going to start scheduling those rides. We’re going to go very slowly, so we don’t overburden our volunteers with those. If you know of anybody that wants to be a volunteer driver, send them our way. Our new website is up and running: lakelinks.org,” she concluded.
