South Central Regional Transit District
Why support public transit in New Mexico?
Public transit provides access for the general public, disabled and senior citizens to get to and from jobs and job training; emergency, medical prenatal and behavioral health care and veteran services; educational facilities; entertainment, shopping, community, senior, parks and recreational facilities.
As public transportation continues to grow, New Mexico’s 28 transit agencies provide fixed-route, dial-a-ride, demand response, intercommunity routes and paratransit that gives people more mobility options with low or zero emission transit vehicles to reduce carbon emissions to improve New Mexico’s air quality.
In the attached backgrounders, the transit agencies tell their stories about how their services assist the communities they serve, how they have expended federal grant funding and where they could invest additional state match transit funding if it was available.
What is your agency’s service area?
Doña Ana, Otero, and Sierra County. We also have some services that run into El Paso County, Texas.
What transportation modes does your agency provide?
Fixed Route Services currently. Microtransit services are planned in the next year.
How many buses, vans and other vehicles do you operate?
18 buses, 4 vans, 2 admin vehicles, and 2 service trucks in our fleet.
Key priorities for making services route decisions?
Due to our large geographic area, our agency receives formula funding through FTA rural, small urban, and large urban areas to help cover our operations expenses and capital projects. We also apply for competitive grants through our two MPOs, NMDOT, and directly from the FTA. These grants are used for our larger capital expenses, such as maintenance facilities and bus electrification.
How has your agency applied its federal funding?
Funding goes to direct operations, personnel salaries & fringe benefits, operational costs, administrative expenses, staff development
How would your agency apply additional state transit funding?
Our agency is working on a new hybrid microtransit program, which brings together paratransit services and vanpool services into a single on-demand service, running off of a cloud-based software for dispatching and ride hailing. Funding to help cover the software license, as well as any staffing costs would be very helpful in getting our service ready for launch. Additionally, SCRTD is working to modernize our fleet. Funding to install APC and AVL systems on our existing fleet would allow us to track the location of our fixed route buses and forward that information to mapping services such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, Transit App, etc.
What ways does your agency assist your community during community events or emergency assistance?
Our agency makes ourselves available to local governments and nonprofits for events and emergency assistance. In the past, we've provided service to events such as the Hatch Chile Festival and have done so for multiple years.