Welcome to Bismarck Insights with Mayor Mike Schmitz, a transparent and engaging conversational dive into meaningful topics impacting local government in Bismarck, North Dakota. Bismarck Insights is dedicated to removing barriers between the city of Bismarck and the citizens we serve every day. Hello and welcome to Bismarck Insights. I'm Bismarck Mayor Mike Schmitz, and today we're gonna focus on Bizan Transit and public transportation. And with me is Deidre Hughes, who's the executive director for Bian Transit. But before we get too far into it, Deidre, why don't you let the audience know a little bit about you and your educational background and what brought you to be in your current position? Absolutely, thank you. Um, so yes, you, you touched on it. I'm the executive director for Bizan Transit. I've been, uh, in this role. Um, for about 5 years, um, prior to that, I was the marketing and mobility manager for Bizan Transit. So I've been in the transportation, public transportation, um, industry now for going on 7 years this month, so a lot of, uh, learning in those 7 years, but prior to that, um, I did, uh, complete my bachelor's of Science in marketing and then I also do have an MBA. So I have the, the textbook education, but really public transportation. It's hands on education for it, so, um, I've been fortunate enough to kind of grow with the company as well. Sure, they probably, yeah, like you said, they probably don't teach transportation in general in a in a business degree per se, uh, but it's a very important piece of how we get to and from places in our community, our communities. So let's talk a little bit about what Biisman Transit is and what, how it came to be and a little history just let's give the people a little history lesson. Yeah, absolutely. um, so everyone probably sees, uh, both our cat bus, which is our larger bus driving around the community, um, as well as our smaller paratransit vehicles. But the understanding of how those actually work within the system and how they're placed within the city of Bismarck is, I think, a little bit gray and cloudy for some people, so. Um, businessman Transit, uh first started um doing transportation back late 80s, early 90s. Um, it was a nonprofit organization. um funding sources were a little sketchy at that point in time and really the sole purpose of public transportation at that point was to try and find a mode of transportation for elderly and the disabled communities. Um, so for about 15 years that was the only transportation that was being completed, um, on the public side of things. In 2004, um, Bisan Transit, uh, started, uh, Capital Area Transit, which is the CAT bus, um, that is our fixed route service, um, that travels, um, 6 routes in Bismarck and Mandan, one over in Mandan, and then 5 in Bismarck, um, and that's for the general public. So those are those fixed routes where you know they're traveling past, um, say Kirkwood Mall at a set point in time. Um, and anyone can flag down the bus system and and jump on the bus, and they can flag it down a bus at anywhere along the route, correct except the intersection. Yes, yes, um, and there are a few spots throughout the community that we don't allow, you know, flag down just for safety. One of those is on expressway kind of coming down the hill by cash wise and then over on Century. But other than that, if you're on a bus route. You see the bus driving past. As long as you're on the passenger side of the vehicle, you can flag down the bus and they'll pull over within a half block and let you let you board. That's a little bit different than a lot of communities that have the dedicated stops, and I think there's a lot of confusion about a flag down system, um, because people want At a timetable and say, OK, I need to be here at this exact to look. time, but the benefits of a flag down system is you're not having to walk an extra 6 blocks to a bus stop. You're able to just simply, oh green route runs here. I can, you know, step to the curb wave down the bus, and they're able to stop for him. So we have these 6 routes Bismarck and then the route in Manan. Are there Intersecting points so people understand like if obviously one bus route may not get you to where you need to be from point A to point B. So we are kind of those intersecting or hub spots. Yeah, absolutely. So those are the exception to the flag down system. We do have dedicated stops where we um transfer buses. We call those our transfer points. The main one is right north of the event center on Front Avenue. There's 2 shelters there, um, and that is where 5 of. Our buses meet every other hour and 4 of them meet every hour. Um, we do also have another transfer point up by Bismarck State College. There's a shelter, um, right there on campus where we have 2 routes that meet. And then over on Mapleton Avenue that is near um Dakota I and um like Sicky's restaurant, there is a transfer point there OK, and the, the fixed route runs on set hours. as well. What are those hours? Correct, yes, so the fixed route runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, and then on Saturday we start an hour later, so that's 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and not on Sundays, no Sunday service for the general public. OK. And as we look at those fixed routes, let's we're talking about that right now we have another system that we'll we'll visit about as well, but those fixed routes generally cover what geographic. Areas within our two communities so that people kind of get a sense of, you know, where they maybe need to get to if they want to use the bus system which is available to everyone. Yeah, absolutely kind of starting with man and that's our purple route. So that's a little bit longer route that isn't quite the 60 minute route like our Bismarck routes are, but Um, we'll start out at Bismarck State College, um, leave there across the river, and then we're going all the way up to the new high school. Um, we're right by Walmart, and then we travel down Sunset and we can get over on Main Street. We're going past the library, um, down to Family Fair and then even as far south as the Fort Lincoln Elementary School. Um, then when we're coming back to Front Avenue to catch that transfer point, um, we're traveling on the strip and then we're going, um, on McKenzie Avenue all the way by Family Wellness and, um, over by, you know, the water park and then coming back to Bismarck. So people who are in Manan who want to get to Bismarck, that's kind of the route that they're gonna be taking. Um, as far as our, our 5 routes in, in, in Bismarck, we're going all the way out to University of Mary with our green route. We're going all the way up to, um, like 43rd, um, Skyline right by North Walmart, all the way over as far east as the uh Family Fair location on Yorktown. So we're trying to cover. As much as we can, so our service area is actually 56 square miles. So for us to try and cover geographically all of that with the routes that we do have, there's a lot that goes into that, that route planning and being that big a geographic area, that's why the transfer points are, are critical and, and being able to get from, you know, North Bismarck all the way out to the University of Mary, you're probably gonna be on more than one bus, um, which obviously is some of the time. Situation, um, and, and again you mentioned how, what's the desired result as our current system is set up to for the route run? What's like it's a 60 minute run or? So, so as you're planning your day, you probably need to plan, you know, commute time of a little more than 60 minutes probably, especially if you need to transfer buses, OK. Besides the fixed route, we have called paratransit, but it probably gets used more than that. Let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah, so the term paratransit just to give a little bit of a history lesson on what paratransit is, um, paratransit is a term used by the ADA. And it refers to the service that is required when a community has a fixed route bus system, there needs to be a complimentary service that is provided for disabled individuals in our community, we do open that up to um elderly as well, but that is not part of the requirement. Um, what it is is a door to door service, where users are able to schedule their ride up to 14 days in advance, but at a minimum of 1 day in advance. Um, and we just need to know, you know, point of origin and destination, and that's pretty much it as long as they're a certified user. Um, so what certification kind of looks like is they apply, you know, have an application where we go through, um, ask about their disability, ask, you know, where they live, emergency contacts, all that, and then we send a verification form to their provider whether that's, you know, a social. Worker, you know, an occupational therapist, a doctor, whatever it might be, just verifying that their disability qualifies them to use the service. Once they're qualified, you know, they're qualified until for 3 years, and then we do a re-certification. Um, but what that service really is meant for is for those individuals who cannot use um the fixed route service. Because of accessibility to the to the the bus or getting to the bus route, um, and things like that. What, um, is it open to the general public? No, at this point in time, paratransit is exclusive to elderly and disabled. Um, and those paratransit hours that we're required to operate as anytime that fixed up bus is on the road, we need to be providing paratransit service. Now, the exception to that, bringing up general public is Any time that the fixed bus isn't on the road, paratransit service now shifts. That definition changes to demand response, and demand response is kind of like a dial or ride in a lot of other communities where potentially we could open that up to the general public. Um, it's not a requirement to be exclusive at that point in time. But that's kind of where the where the differences are. But at this point, no, um, our para transit is exclusive to those certified individuals, but we operate the paratransit on different set of hours or additional hours probably is a better term than the fixed routes run. Let's talk about that a little bit because that is a significant concern in the community. Absolutely. So we do offer a very robust schedule for our paratransit service. So Monday through Saturday we're starting service as early as 5:30 a.m. and ending at midnight. Um, on Sundays we do run a shortened schedule, 7:30 to 2:30 in the afternoon, um, but this is a very, very, um. Expansive system and service hours compared to a lot of other communities in the Midwest, um, you know, looking at like comparable service all the way to Sioux Falls, Billings, Saint Cloud um we have one of the most, like I said, robust systems not to say we can't, you know, always be working and improving and providing services for the community, um. But we do have a much, much larger system and I'm glad you brought that up because I know we're in the midst of looking at how we may be able to improve transportation for the for the public. It's funded publicly, so it's public transportation. But um you have done some research to see you know how are we comparing and do we know we know we want to be better but the goal would be that we're the best, right? We're we're offering the best service that that anybody in our region is and and I'm glad you've done that research. So um as you what are what are the things you've heard I know I've been hearing things, but what have you heard. That people want to see from transportation in Bismarck and Mandan and I guess we don't really go out to Lincoln, but You know, that I'm, I'm sure people would like to see that too, but yeah, yeah, we actually do provide paratransit service to Lincoln, just no fixed rough service, um. So dating back to, I guess when I started at uh Bisman Transit back in 2018, um, in the marketing role, I did a lot of community surveys. I would do outreach, um, working with, you know, higher education or the public school systems and a lot of what we've been hearing since then all the way up to yesterday, um, has been longer hours for our general public users um. We're not able to with our current system get individuals to their 3rd shift jobs or home from their 2nd shift jobs or you know kids want to go to a movie but ending at 7 o'clock it makes it really really tricky um so having to promote the service as we can get you there but we might not be able to get you home has been a barrier for us and that has probably been the number one. Feedback or concern that we've heard over the years is expanding those service hours to help accommodate some of those later um events that people want to participate in the community and and that is part of the. Restriction that's created by not just Maybe hours available of drivers, right, finding more drivers, but also funding. So Bisman Transit is, it, it's unique in a way because it's kind of a private entity because it's not for profit. It's not part of. Either of the cities, but the funding comes as a result of So let's talk about funding a little bit and, and then we're the two cities. gonna talk about what has recently happened. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so yes, you touched on it. I, I'm not a city department. Um, Bisman Transit is actually a nonprofit organization that is contracted by the city of Bismarck to provide public transportation, and, and there's um a lot of restrictions and expectations that are set forth by the city of Bismarck that we have to follow, um, but we are our own entity. That doesn't mean that we're generating funding on our own. A lot of our funding is being trickled through the city of Bismarck, um, so our federal grants, um, come through the city of Bismarck, and we are a sub recipient of those grants. Um, federal grants make up about 50, 50% of what we actually, you know, are expending throughout the year. So, um, we have a number of grants that are formulary meaning. That we get them without any application throughout the year um that's our our standard operating grant and then we have some competitive federal grants that we are applying for each year to help um offset the cost of purchasing vehicles um upkeep to the facility, um, and then paying for our, our after hours or our extra service on, on the Paransit we're receiving some operating assistance from that as well. Um, other funding that we currently have, uh, is some state aid through the state of North Dakota. Um, recently, the State Bill 2254, we actually received, um, about 192,000 is what I think it's gonna play out to be for the next two years, um, in assistance for as we have a, a fixed drought service, so other fixed rough providers in North Dakota are we gonna be getting that as well. Um, that's kind of some of the local side, and then obviously, the biggest chunk of our funding on the local side comes from our property mill levies that we currently have through both Mandan and Bismarck. So we have 3 mills through the city of Bismarck, 2 for the city of Mandan, and then we We do have a, uh, just a standard contract to provide service to the city of Lincoln. So that's the majority of our funding. I mean, we always have kind of other things that we're trying to do to generate revenue, our advertising sales, um, things like that, smaller portions of our funding and even though it's. It's not a large fee. There is a small amount of funding that comes from the fee to ride, but let's talk about that because I don't think people understand probably how economical that is for them. What does it cost for a person to ride the bus? Sure, yeah, excellent point. So to have a one-way trip on our cat bus, one that's open to the general public, is a. 50s. Um, we do also offer reduced fares for um students for um individuals that have a Medicare card, veterans, so that's 75 cents then for a one-way trip. um, and we offer a couple of different options for tickets. So if they want an all day pass, if they want um an unlimited monthly pass, that's 24 for our um. Our discounted fares and then $36 for our full fare. So if you know you're gonna be riding the bus 10 times a week, you know, those unlimited passes really make sense. On the flip side, our pay transit service is $3.01 way, no matter what. Um, we do work with, you know, Medicaid and can do some medical billing, things like that, but it's $3 is the standard cost. One nice thing that I think a lot of people don't know about is if you are a registered user on our Pa transit service, um, you are able to ride the CAT bus for free. Um, so as long as you have the card that says you're certified with Bizan Transit, you're able to get on any of our CAT buses at any time for free. And then we also do allow individuals over 65 to ride our bus for free. So very economical to get from point A to point B, especially if you're not able or willing to drive and you don't have to use a cab or an Uber or a Lyft, which costs more than that. Um, what, so when we look at going forward, we know that there was an initiative measure in the cities, both cities, Bismarck and Man for additional sales tax revenue. And as, as we're looking at how we expand the service, that's going to be critical to to funding that. um, what, what do you hear from the riders in the communities, the hours they would like to see and route design. For both paratransit or on demand and fixed route. Yes, absolutely, um, we've been getting a lot of feedback obviously there's been a lot more exposure to public transportation in the past couple of years uh due to the initiated ventures in both communities. So as I mentioned earlier, you know, the longer service hours on the CAT bus has been really a hot topic for us, um, even starting a little bit earlier, um. Help get individuals to school or to work um starting at 7 o'clock if if that trip's gonna take you a little bit longer, you might be cutting it close getting to work by 8 o'clock so possibly shifting our hours so we're, you know, opening at 6 o'clock and ending at 10 o'clock that one has been, you know, pushed pretty heavily um there's been some interest in, um, possibly shifting some of the routes so that we're getting closer to, um, some hospitals, um. I guess one of the other things is possibly a circular route or an express route. So our standard routes are 60 minutes like we touched on earlier. Um, if there is an option for us to have either an express route that's say 30 minutes that we're, you know, getting from North Bismarck to South Bismarck or even Bismarck to Mandan or um in more of our um service district areas we're hitting the Dream center, you know, soup kitchen and, and having. Some sort of higher frequency route that's been really um talked about pretty heavily on the paratransit side of things um I think the number one thing I've heard is expanding our Sunday hours so that we're not stopping service at 2:30, um, possibly looking at expanding, extending that out to, you know, 6 o'clock, giving, um, individuals who want to spend time with family or church events a little bit more time rather than I just got to church now I gotta turn around and get on the bus and get home. Um, and then with that Sunday service, um, possibly coming up with some way that we're able to facilitate a general public transportation on Sundays because like we mentioned right now, there is no general public service on Sundays, and that that is the gap that I think we're missing in the community to get people out there. Do we have restrictions to be able to open that up to the general public that on demand as long as we're meeting the other. If we have funding available we can do that. Yes, absolutely. So no, we don't have any restrictions that would prevent us from opening our paratransit service on Sundays to the general public more so I think our restrictions might be staffing those buses and we'll come to that and and making sure that there's still is capacity for the users. Who do require um accessible vehicles because that can be a challenge um but as far as you know federal restrictions, as I mentioned, if that fixed up bus isn't isn't operating, it's now demand response and technically that can be open to the general public, you know, we would still require a one day notice for us to get the trip scheduled, but it's something that we can definitely look at exploring. OK. And let's talk about staffing a little bit. First off, the staffing is contracted. It's not exactly a Bisman Transit employee. There are very few actual employees of Bisman Transit, um, but knowing that, what are, what are we finding in the community? The, the ability or lack of thereof to find additional drivers because that's really what it's gonna take. Yes, yes, so you mentioned it, um, the. Operations, employees, so that's our drivers, our dispatchers, our maintenance. They're actually subcontracted by Bisan Transit to a company called We Drive You, um, previously National Express. So we've had a contract with them since, um, fall of 2017, and, and we've been, you know, wonderful service and it's really great to have them as a partner, um. But just like every other industry that has drivers and especially CDL drivers, there has been a lot of ups and downs with staffing, and we've worked pretty closely with them to try and get pay raises, additional benefits, um, to keep those employees and help retain them working. With them on, you know, scheduling their vacation time off, um, I have a really wonderful general manager. His name's Craig Thomas, and he's been, you know, with with us the whole time that I've been there, and he is so dedicated to providing the service that even as a general manager, he has been out driving buses when we've been short. Obviously that's not in an ideal situation, so we've been really, really heavy about recruiting. Um, in the past, you know, since COVID, basically really pushing recruiting, we are constantly attending job fairs, um, anytime that there's an opportunity for recruitment, um, without going through their corporate office, we're there. So. Let's talk, what, what are we looking, what are they looking for for drivers? Do they need to be full-time drivers? Can we, I mean, I'm now I'm in the recruitment side here, how can we maybe encourage some citizens who maybe are, maybe they've retired early, maybe they've retired, they're just looking for something to do. Probably is a great way to meet people if you're driving. I hear, you know, people driving school buses, they like to meet people too. What, what are, what are they looking for? Is there some requirements that they need to have to place a driver? Yeah, I mean, obviously it's the standard background checks we want to make sure that we're having um safe individuals who are going to be transporting individuals, but aside from that, um, Craig is really, really great about working with individual schedules and if we're talking about expanding, we're gonna need to be really thinking heavily about how we're gonna get the right individuals into those seats. um, so we'll work with part-time employees, um, obviously we do like some full time. Employees to make sure that they're knowing um the routes and the services um but we have a lot of retired individuals we have people who used to be bus drivers or used to be drivers in other communities that will move here and they like having that option um of working you know 4 days a week and then they have, you know, 3 days off but they're talking to the community and they're seeing what's going on out there, um, as far as as. Training, uh, if someone is interested in getting their CDL, Craig actually does CDL training, um, so we can get people trained into those positions, um, without having that passenger training, and then a para transit side of things, we actually don't require a CDL. So if you're thinking, I don't want to be driving those big buses, you know, we have that option of that that's a lower level. That's like a chauffeur's license. There's still a A license requirement above driving your car. There's still certifications, so people, if you have a desire to maybe supplement some retirement income or just to have something to do. Give businessman Transit a call because it's gonna be critical. We are definitely looking at and I know that because of the way the initiated measure was worded and passed, there will be funding available and we will be looking to expand services and we have to try to get some creative in some some situations too. And what have we heard from the steering committee on that? Like what are their expectations do you think? So the steering committee has been very, very active with what public transportation looks like in our communities and we really appreciate all the people who are stepping up and, you know, understanding that this is such a huge issue for our community but again coming back to those expanded hours, um, the biggest thing. Is those users or those steering committee members want to make our community more accessible to elderly, disabled, and the general public, um, that is probably one of the biggest focuses that I've seen is how can we get people wherever they wanna go at a reasonable time, um, also making sure that we're we're shoring up our books and making sure that our deficit that you know we've been projecting for years is taken care of. Once that's done, now let's get down to the meat and potatoes and figure out what we can do to improve our service, or what are we doing that's great right now that we really don't want to touch. And I'm gonna, you brought it up and, and I maybe I haven't avoided it, but we just had so much other stuff to talk about, but, uh, Busan Transit is a not for profit that is largely funded by government funding, one source or another. And the reality is when you have $1.50 to take the bus that's not gonna pay for the operations and so for everybody to understand part of the reason for the initiative measure was to shore up the budget and we've talked about this in the steering committee. We know that it's somewhere between $0.000 and $375 million annually right now that the, the service has been deficit spending, um, been able to do that because we've had sources that we had. Saved I guess from various grants through some very fortuitous opportunities probably that came about for for reasons that weren't really great um but that's a known need and we also know that this initiative measure is gonna provide us additional funding to provide some additional services in the communities um. At some point in time, whether it's through Bisman Transit or we find a unique way to deliver some of other on-demand services, we'll have to see, but, uh, Deidre, I really appreciate you taking the time today to visit with me and try to share a little information about Bisman Transit. Hopefully the public now has a better understanding and we do encourage people if you, if you really don't wanna drive or if you wanna even try the bus system, please do. It really is there for the general public. I realized not everybody can use it. Their schedules maybe don't allow it. They maybe need a car because they, they gotta get places at a certain time. But if your job maybe allows you to do that, hey, give it a try. So again, thank you, thank you, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for watching Bismarck Insights with Mayor Mike Schmitz. If you have specific topics or questions you'd like addressed in future episodes, email M Schmitz at BismarckndD.gov. Or call the City of Bismarck at 701-355-1300. To learn more about the city of Bismarck, visit bizarndD.gov or follow us on a variety of social media channels by searching Bismarck NDgov. Bismarck Insights is a collaboration between Dakota Media Access and the City of Bismarck. You may find Bismarck Insights episodes on government Access Channels 2 and 602, as well as on Broku, Apple TV, and Fire TV devices on Radio Access 102.5 FM and on demand at freeTv.org.