Kelly Schraeder calls shared ride service a lifeline for patients at Fresnius Kidney Care in Berwick, and she means it literally.
"These patients come three times a week, and it's not optional. It's not just keeping them healthy. It's keeping them alive," said Schraeder, the clinic's manager.
In a small community with no fixed-route public transit, the van service provided by rabbittransit is the only way many patients can reach their dialysis treatments at Fresinius.
"Without it, they couldn't get here. And if they can't get a treatment, bad things happen, including hospitalizations," Schraeder said.
She joined Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll and rabbittransit Executive Director Richard Farr for a press conference on Tuesday to talk about the benefits of public transit to rural and small-town residents across the state.
It's a message Carroll was eager to share in support of Gov. Josh Shapiro's budget proposal for an additional $282.8 million investment in transit — the largest increase in over a decade.
"We're here today to highlight the importance of transit in Pennsylvania. Not just transit in the Philadelphia area and Pittsburgh area, but transit right here in Columbia County and in the central Susquehanna Valley, and across rural Pennsylvania," he added.
"Half of the folks that make it here to Fresenius have no other way of getting here, if not for the shared ride offered by rabbittransit," Carroll added.
Key statistics
That is not uncommon.
Shared ride service is available in all of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties and provided 4.5 million trips in the state 2022-23 fiscal year, according to statistics provided by PennDOT.
Of those trips, 2.6 million were taken by seniors and persons with disabilities through funding from PennDOT’s shared-ride programs. Of the 2.6 million PennDOT-funded trips, approximately 44 percent were medical trips and 11 percent were work trips, agency statistics show.
On average, 64 percent of fixed-route riders and nearly 54 percent of shared-ride users say that they have no alternate means of transportation.
In the counties served by rabbittransit, nearly 50 percent of shared ride and 69.4 percent of fixed-route users have no other transportation option.
Based in York County, rabbittransit operates fixed route bus service in its core area as well as shared ride services in a wide stretch of central Pennsylvania, including Columbia County.
"We recognize the profound impact our services have on the lives of the individuals across our region, specifically, our provision of over 60,000 dialysis trips each year," said rabbittransit Executive Director Richard Farr. "That really underscores the vital role of public transportation provides ensuring access to life sustaining medical care for our communities."
Spread across the state
Some critics of transit funding have argued that funding disproportionately benefits urban areas.
PennDOT officials point out that in addition to shared-ride service in all counties, Pennsylvania’s public transit services include fixed route bus service in 49 counties, as well as fixed route rail service in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Carroll hopes legislators will recognize that as they consider Shapiro's overall spending plan ahead of the June 30 deadline.
"I have a level of confidence that as the budget is negotiated in its totality, the members of the House and Senate will understand the importance of transit, both for our urban centers, and for rural Pennsylvania," Carroll said.
MORE COVERAGE
WVIA will bring you more about how Shapiro's transit funding plan would affect Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania in the coming days.
