On-call transportation program approved by City Council

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Acknowledging the need for more specialized public transportation in the Menifee senior community, the City Council this week approved a new way to address the situation – on-call services.

With its action, the council authorized the city manager to execute a Memorandum of Understanding with Care-A-Van Services, Inc., to provide a specialized transit program which will be funded by federal transit sources. The action also authorizes the city manager to execute a professional services agreement with GoGo Technologies, Inc., for an emergency ride voucher program in an amount not to exceed $112,500, funded by Measure A Grant Funds.

Following a survey conducted by members of the Senior Advisory Committee, it was determined that on-call transportation services is a positive alternative to scheduled transportation such as RTA, which has had limited ridership between the Sun City core and businesses on Newport Road. In addition, the local Dial-A-Ride program is near capacity.

The program is tentatively scheduled to kick off next month.

While approving the program, council members expressed surprise that the call for service model was introduced.

“I fear this might have unintended consequences,” said council member Matt Liesemeyer. “Will RTA start cancelling routes?”

Gloria Sanchez, chair of the Senior Advisory Committee, said that RTA had already canceled a route from Sun City to the Kay Ceniceros Senior Center and that more specialized transportation options are needed at this time.

“I’m very excited to get this done,” she told council members at Wednesday’s meeting. “This is the beginning. We all wanted our own transit system. I still would like to see fixed trips, and I hope that will happen in the future. I think you will find that because we are advocates for this, it will have full ridership.

“This is our opportunity to show seniors we can provide on-call services for them to get to medical appointments as well as the senior center. We’re looking at specialized, point to point pickup.”

Seniors must apply to be eligible for the program, which has a three-year funding agreement.