MassDOT's annual Community Transit Grant Program is scheduled to open for applications April 29 and close on June 24. Councils on Aging, non-profits, transit authorities, municipalities, and some taxis can apply for funding for vehicles, mobility management projects, or operating expenses to expand mobility for older adults and people with disabilities. For inspiration, check out this recent report on creative examples of how organizations have used this funding in the past. Attendance at a virtual training session - scheduled for April 21 and 27 - is mandatory for new applicants and optional for returning applicants. If you have questions or wish to sign up for a training, contact Jenna Henning.

Find additional funding opportunities on the MassMobility funding for community transportation webpage.

Have you used PT-1 or other Human Service Transportation (HST) services since July 1, 2021? If so, share your feedback with the HST Office at an upcoming Virtual Public Listening Session. HST transportation is coordinated by two brokers: the Montachusett Regional Transit Authority (MART) and the Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority (GATRA). New contracts with MART and GATRA went into effect on July 1, 2021. These new contracts introduced new technologies to improve customer service, such as smart phone apps and self-service web portals to facilitate scheduling rides and reporting complaints. Members and consumers are invited to join virtual public listening sessions to share their experience with HST services through MART and GATRA since the new contracts were implemented on July 1, 2021:

The next meeting of the Non-Emergency Human Service Transportation Task Force is coming up April 28. Learn more.

In February, the Point32Health Foundation announced grants totaling over $1.1 million to 10 community organizations, including funding for projects related to age-friendly transportation to four Massachusetts-based organizations: GreenRoots, LivableStreets Alliance, WalkBoston, and the Massachusetts Public Health Association (MPHA). These grants are the first awarded by Point32Health Foundation following the combination of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation and Tufts Health Plan Foundation in January.

Point32Health Foundation sees transportation as a critical element of age-friendly communities. “Early in the pandemic, transportation was less of an issue. Technology took its place. But we need a balance – older adults should be able to be out in community and also have access to key services from home,” says Phillip González, Director of Community Investments at Point32Health Foundation. “You should be able to go out to lunch, buy shoes, volunteer, whatever you want – it’s not just about medical appointments.”

Point32Health Foundation selected these four organizations because of how they approach transportation: inclusively, collaboratively, and with an equity focus. “Each of these organizations is grounded in the community,” González emphasizes. “They are bringing their expertise to the table and they see an opportunity for change. They are working with and responsive to people in the community who are engaged and want this for themselves.”

Each organization is taking a different approach to eliminating barriers to transportation. GreenRoots will build on their work bringing older adult rider voices into conversations with the MBTA. As a resident-led organization working to achieve environmental justice in Chelsea and East Boston, GreenRoots has worked on transit justice for 15 years, including advocacy around affordability that led the MBTA to create the YouthPass program. In 2019, in response to multiple planned MBTA and MassDOT projects affecting mobility in Chelsea, GreenRoots started the Chelsea Public Transit Task Force to convene residents, City officials, and the MBTA General Manager regularly, with a focus on bringing residents and RIDE users into the conversation. In addition to engaging older adults on the Task Force, GreenRoots also supports older adults in offering testimony at meetings of the MBTA Fiscal Management and Control Board. “You can’t just look at the numbers, you have to understand the riders,” emphasizes Maria Bélén Power, Associate Executive Director of GreenRoots. “it’s really important to have those who are most impacted at the table from the very beginning – not just providing feedback later on in the process.”

The LivableStreets Alliance will use their grant to continue engaging older adult transit riders. Through their Street Ambassador program, LivableStreets engages older adults to talk with older riders at bus stops and on buses about their needs and experiences. “The center of all of our work is hearing from people as they move along our streets and making sure that those most likely to be overlooked, especially older adults, are leading the conversation to have their needs met,” says Kristiana Lachiusa, Director of Transit and Outreach. These insights from older riders inform LivableStreets’ work and advocacy. Currently, LivableStreets is working on infusing older riders’ needs into a set of rider-based metrics to measure transit success, as well as tools to help other community organizations bring older adult voices into fare-free bus campaigns.

Through their Point32Health Foundation grant, WalkBoston seeks to continue and build on their statewide and community-specific work on age-friendly walkability by engaging two new sets of stakeholders in advocating for more walkable neighborhoods: family caregivers and travel trainers. Both groups already engage with walkability, as many family caregivers support older adults with transportation and errands, which could include walking around the community, and travel trainers support trainees with walking to and from the bus stop. WalkBoston seeks to learn from both groups, partner with them, and offer tools and strategies to empower them to advocate for walkability improvements.

MPHA’s grant will allow them to do intentional work to expand the role that older adult voices play in their transportation, housing, and local public health advocacy. For example, MPHA seeks to include organizations that represent and hone the power of older adults on their Policy Council, which plays a key decision-making role in all of MPHA’s policy work. MPHA also plans to integrate the perspectives of older adults in their work through the RTA Advocates Coalition, which advocates for mobility in Regional Transit Authority service areas across the state. “Ultimately, we seek to help equip older adults to advocate for reliable, clean, and affordable transportation within their community as well as increase their access to decision-makers,” explains Alexis Walls, MPHA Assistant Campaign Director.

All four are multi-year grants. Over the next three years, Point32Health Foundation will continue its focus on healthy aging, access to healthy food, and behavioral health across the lifespan. The foundation has also been conducting listening sessions and inviting community feedback as it plans its longer term strategy. “Although our name has changed, we are still here. We are interested in investing in community and learning from and listening to community,” emphasizes Alrie McNiff Daniels, Point32Health Foundation’s Director of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement.

MassMobility thanks Ed Carr, Administrator of the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority, for authoring this guest article. The article originally appeared in MWRTA’s monthly Hub Happenings newsletter. If you would like to submit a guest article to MassMobility, please contact us.

My version begins in 1999 while working at the Executive Office of Transportation and Construction as the Deputy Chief of Staff under Secretary Patrick Moynihan. His direction to me then was straightforward and simple…“Do not let anything [issues] fall through the cracks and, as a result, embarrass the Administration or me, particularly in MetroWest.” As a Natick Selectman at the time, I understood what he wanted. However, not two weeks later, a very large picture appeared on the front page of the Globe of a visually impaired woman standing on Route 9 in Southborough, in the rain, waiting for a bus and lamenting about the dearth of public transportation in MetroWest.

The Mayor of Marlborough, Bill Mauro, shortly after that picture was published, called for a series of meetings of politicians, transportation advocates, consultants, professionals both public and private, and groupies to his City Hall to discuss the problem and try to do something about it. Naturally, I was directed to be there as a result of the Secretary’s directive. Those series of meetings eventually morphed into what is now called the 495/Metrowest Partnership, a public-private advocacy organization whose focus is now much broader than just transportation.

As the years went on, Mayor Mauro’s leadership style of collaboration and team building, along with his political savvy as a leader on the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), was instrumental in putting together a small team of us to work with then newly-minted Senator Karen Spilka in 2004. By 2006, the Senator was able to change the language in the Mass General Laws to allow MetroWest to create its own Regional Transit Authority on July 1, 2007.

On June 2, 2008, Southborough joined as the eleventh member of the MWRTA. Representing Southborough was Betty Soderholm, the visually impaired woman who was waiting for the bus on Route 9 in the rain.

MassDOT is looking for organizations willing to host Accessible Lift Use and Passenger Securement driver training classes this spring. You can send up to five of your own drivers to any workshop you host. To host, you will need to provide:

Interested in hosting a training?

You can also send your drivers to sessions hosted by other organizations, and some driver training courses are offered virtually: check out these upcoming trainings for urban transportation providers located in Greater Boston, Worcester, and Springfield and upcoming trainings for providers located in rural and small urban areas. Still have questions? Learn more about MassDOT’s driver training offerings or contact MassDOT with questions.

The National Center for Mobility Management is compiling a database of promising practices in mobility management. If you have implemented a new or enhanced method of delivering mobility management that improved people's ability to travel in their communities, submit your promising practice for potential inclusion in this national database.

The MBTA is opening a new Mobility Center in Boston that will assist older adults and individuals with disabilities in accessing and using a range of transportation services in the Boston area. To staff this Center, MTM is recruiting qualified candidates for the following positions: ADA Manager, Mobility Assessment Evaluator, ADA Eligibility Specialist, Transit Navigator, Travel Training Manager, Travel Trainer, and Transit Coordinator.

The Central Mass Regional Planning Commission is hiring a Transit Planner.

Many Regional Transit Authorities, the MBTA, and human service transportation providers are looking to hire drivers, while volunteer driver programs need additional volunteers.

Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe here

You can read all past issues of the MassMobility newsletter in our archive