Karen Lightman, executive director of the Metro21:Smart Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, speaks to the Greene County Board of Commissioners about a grant that would provide on-demand transportation for county residents. [Garrett Neese]<\/p>\n
Greene County residents in need of transportation could soon have a new way to get around.<\/p>\n
Thursday, the Greene County Board of Commissioners approved partnering with Carnegie Mellon University on an Appalachian Regional Commission grant to fund a program in the county.<\/p>\n
Greene County would receive $675,000 from the grant through ARC\u2019s Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE) initiative, paired with an in-kind commitment of up to $383,955 over a three-year period.<\/p>\n
Karen Lightman, executive director of the Metro21:Smart Cities Institute at CMU, said the amount they\u2019d been able to raise from the local community had actually knocked the county\u2019s required contribution down to around $180,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m getting chills just saying it to you: Your community wants to support you,\u201d Lightman told the board. \u201cThey know that this is what you need, and they are willing to put skin in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Operating within the county\u2019s existing transportation program, the new initiative would include two minivans, as well as drivers and a call coordinator.<\/p>\n
The collaboration grew from a partnership between CMU and Waynesburg University to study food insecurity in Greene County.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey quickly realized it was not because there was a lack of food, it was a lack of transportation,\u201d Lightman said.<\/p>\n
That led to the development of the Rural County Mobility Platform, a Department of Energy-funded pilot that ran for four months in Greene County in 2024. Blueprints managed the program, which combined a fixed-route shuttle system with on-demand vehicles. <\/p>\n
Over that span, more than 1,000 people used the service, Brightman said.<\/p>\n
In the year-and-a-half since it ended, many people have asked, \u201cWhere\u2019s RAMP?,\u201d Brightman said. <\/p>\n
The permanent program will be on-demand only, with no fixed routes. And unlike the pilot, riders will have to pay a fee, which Brightman said would remain under $10.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expectation is this will be sustainable in the long term,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we\u2019ll be looking for ways to supplement the cost as well as to charge people to take the service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lightman said she\u2019s gotten calls from similar communities around the country asking for help with similar initiatives. She\u2019s given presentations to places in Mississippi and Alabama.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are one day going to look back at this and say Greene County was the trailblazer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lightman said they should find out if the grant application was successful in August or September.<\/p>\n
The ride share is being done in conjunction with the Steel Valley Regional Transportation Authority, which serves southeast Ohio, the panhandle portion of West Virginia and Southwest Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n
The link will provide a \u201cseamless connection\u201d to other systems, such as the Fayette County bus system or the Pittsburgh Region Transit bus system, Lightman said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the idea, is to help people of Greene County get to places that they need to go to for employment, for health care, job training,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Of the 10 counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania, Greene is the only one without on-demand public transportation, said board Vice Chair Betsy McClure. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be our public transportation in Greene County \u2014 so in other words, don\u2019t make that be a reason you don\u2019t come live in Greene County,\u201d she said. \u201cWe will be just like our neighbors. We will have public transportation that can get you to your job.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karen Lightman, executive director of the Metro21:Smart Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, speaks to the Greene County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3140,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-194061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-greene-county","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}