CAMBRIDGE – On Friday the Senate Transportation Committee voted out our version of the FY 2026 Transportation Bill. It is my first transportation budget as chair of the committee. The Transportation Bill (T-Bill) is the spending that operates the Agency of Transportation each year. The T-Bill this year included nearly $900 million in total spending. Nearly $50 million in this year’s T-Bill goes to towns for local roads.
A little more than $400 million, the biggest share, goes into state construction projects in the Program Development Division of the Agency and something over $100 million goes into the maintenance division, which plows the roads. The rest of the $300 million in agency spending goes in varying amounts to things like rail, aviation, central garage and public transit spending.
One of the most interesting areas we discussed in the committee, as we worked on the T-Bill this year, was regarding the Volunteer Drivers Program in Public Transit. All seven of the Public Transit Agencies across the state operate volunteer driver programs. These programs take people of all ages and all walks of life wherever they need to go. Specifically, they take elderly and disadvantaged individuals to medical appointments. In large part, volunteer drivers provide this service in what we refer to as medical transports.
With hospitals, home health agencies, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) and all medical providers down-sizing and facing increasing financial challenges, transportation is becoming an increasingly bigger issue for people. Individuals with driving disabilities and individuals of lower income find transportation an increasing barrier to services.
Covid-19 was hard on these volunteer driver programs across the state. In 2019, there were more than 300 volunteer drivers. By the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic that number was cut in half. In 2019 the volunteer driver programs offered more than 190,000 rides. During the Covid-19 pandemic that dropped to 90,000 rides. There is some recovery in rides provided, but nowhere near before Covid-19.
The question for us in the Transportation Committee became: How do we help grow this increasingly needed service economically? It became clear that recruiting volunteer drivers that only receive mileage reimbursement for the rides they provide has to be part of expanding this service. What we added to the budget is monies for positions to recruit drivers statewide. The seven public transit agencies have never had a fully coordinated statewide recruitment effort and what is envisioned is just that kind of effort.
Rural Community Transportation (RCT) is our local public transit provider. They cover the Northeast Kingdom and Lamoille Counties and are now moving into parts of Franklin County. To volunteer to drive for them there is information on their website at www.riderct.org/volunteer/
To get information about their service for medical transports go to riderct.org/non–emergency–medical–transport/
Senator Richard Westman represents Lamoille-4, a district that includes Wolcott.
