(Photo by Kris Todd) Proudly marking his one-year anniversary today as the RIDES--Regional Transit Authority executive director and CEO, Hugh Lively is planning to solicit input from potential transportation stakeholders in an effort to address their current needs.

Hugh Lively, who's marking his one-year anniversary as the RIDES--Regional Transit Authority (RTA) executive director and CEO today, admits he's fallen into two passions in his life -- helping people and working within the transportation field -- "purely by accident".

The 46-year-old, a native of Georgia who was raised in the Quad Cities area, spent from 1980 until 1997 working directly with people with mental disabilities. In 1997, he was named the director of transportation for a state agency offering comprehensive services to the mentally ill and to substance abusers of Walker, Chattooga, Dade and Catoosa counties in northwest Georgia.

"Back in 1997-8, the agency decided, with my oversight, to pursue getting into the transportation field because the county we resided in did not have public transportation. So, I worked with the county to develop and write a grant," he recalled.

That grant, which detailed a "coordinated transportation" setup, served as a pilot in Georgia. Through it, Lively oversaw approximately 150 public-transit vehicles that made between 800 and 900 trips each day within the four-county area.

By 2004, Lively opted to leave the state's employment in order to start a consulting firm with his wife, Elizabeth. The couple specialized in the launching of rural public transportation systems, as well as the training of RTA employees.

The following year, the couple moved to Wyoming to further advance the growing national emphasis on coordinated transportation.

"Iowa says it leads in the coordinated effort," Lively said, "but I know Georgia wasn't too far behind. Because that's where I learned it, and the entire state of Georgia modeled the way we did it."

The RIDES CEO, meanwhile, has spent the past year acclimating himself to northwest Iowa customs and mannerisms, learning how the nine-county transit agency operates, and meeting individuals at the state, county and local levels.

In a staunch effort to meet the needs of area residents, Lively has reorganized his executive management team since taking the helm of the regional transit agency. To date, his team includes RIDES Chief Operating Officer Deb Feldman, Chief Financial Officer Ted Bauer, Human Resources Director Amy Knoup, Maintenance Director Todd Rohwer, Dispatch Manager Crystal O'Clair and Driver Managers Tom Rutt and Dean Sievert.

The private not-for-profit corporation is one of two in the state. The RTA, which has been in operation since 1976, was the first Iowa regional transit system to construct its own maintenance and office facility in 1987. Today, its 65 drivers and 77 vehicles cover a service area including Buena Vista, Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, Lyon, O'Brien, Osceola, Palo Alto and Sioux counties in northwest Iowa.

"Our biggest obstacle at the moment is the price of fuel," Lively said. "So, we're trying to develop some ideas on what we can do to help curb some of our fuel consumption."

As he indicated RIDES is fast approaching the $400,000 mark in fuel costs for this fiscal year, which ends June 30, Lively noted this compares to the $130,000 - $150,000 spent for fuel two years ago.

To address this, and to keep the RIDES buses rolling, Lively stated a couple smaller minivans are currently on order. Another goal of his is to eventually purchase vehicles which run on gas or E-85 fuel.

As routes are examined in the near future, he noted drivers will also be asked to cut their idling times.

In addition, RIDES representatives will be looking to make changes to the RTA system's current dispatching software in order to incorporate something that better fits the agency's needs.

"This will also help us take a look at our routes, to make them more efficient," Lively said of the prospective dispatching software.

Another change anticipated to occur under Lively's leadership will be the construction of a first RIDES satellite office in the Sheldon Industrial Park. Groundbreaking for the approximately 6,000-square-foot light-duty maintenance facility is expected to occur within the next five weeks, with its anticipated completion expected by this fall.

RIDES finances,

near-future goals

RIDES' operating budget is divided roughly into three revenue sources. Approximately one-third is estimated to come from state and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funding.

"Both state and federal funding are based totally on the number of rides and miles driven. Then, it's a very complicated formula how they determine what each transit agency receives," Lively explained. "For the new fiscal year, we're looking at about $500,000 from each, give or take a few thousand dollars."

While approximately another third of the RIDES operating budget is derived from fares, the last portion comes from contracts with cities and agencies, such as Northwest Aging and Sunshine Services, throughout the nine-county area.

"In each city and county, based upon the county or city, funding helps to buy down the price of a ticket," Lively said. "There's a huge variance (in fares throughout the RIDES service area). Currently, for example, RIDES in Spencer for the general public is $4. Rock Rapids' general public fare is 75 cents. We see a lot of $2 (fares). In Storm Lake, we have $3.50. ... We are looking at changing this (and possibly going to various fares) at the end of our fiscal year this year."

"What Deb (Feldman), Ted (Bauer) and I are currently thinking on is how can we help people in what we call 'this time of crisis,' with fuel costing what it is," he added. "...We're looking at our contracts and, of course, we're looking at increasing rates. We don't want to increase rates too much; but we do want to keep up with the pace of fuel and everything associated with it."

Lively and Bauer, meanwhile, recently visited with county boards of supervisors and, for the first time, requested operation money in addition to the capital replacement funds generally sought to this point.

"When you look at what it costs us to provide service to cities or any entity, such as Sunshine, how our funding works is the reason we get the state and federal funding -- to help offset the deficit it takes for us to provide each of the services in the cities and towns, and programs that we are associated with. So, when we get money from a contractor, ... it doesn't fully fund the operations to provide service for that (contract)," Lively said. "And this happens for all the programs that we have. We only have one or two that are breaking even or pay for themselves. One is a vehicle in (Buena Vista) County; we call it a 'drunk bus' and it's for the college. That pays for itself because the college gives us money; and for no more days or hours than what we provide that, we actually come out a little bit ahead on it."

As a non-profit, the goal of RIDES is to at least break even on the services it offers, he added.

"Even with the $4 fare in Spencer, we still operate at a deficit," Lively said. "But we get by because we are able to subsidize the particular service in Spencer, Storm Lake, Sheldon, Rock Rapids or the Lakes area with that state and federal money. What (CFO) Ted (Bauer) and I are trying to do is close the gap a little bit further with some of our cities so we can use some of our state and federal moneys to possibly start new programs."

RIDES representatives are presently pondering ways in which to help people throughout the area start moving regionally via the RTA services they offer. With a desire to gather all transportation providers, as well as the recipients of transportation services around the same table to talk, Lively said, "My goal in this next year is to get these stakeholders to the table to talk about what we need to do and how we can provide transportation. I want to get people to the table and I want them to come away with a new way of thinking -- because the RTA has changed. With the new management, we're coming up with new ideas and we want the public's input. We want to work with any agency out there that's wanting transportation and is willing to come, sit down and say, 'This is what we need.' ... If we can help them and they can help us, we can try to do the best we can with the limited resources we all have."

He continued, "Hopefully with the reorganizing of the agency, and having our mission and our vision to help others, I'm hoping that you're going to see the RTA involved in a lot more different things. My goal is to work with the community. Because without them, there wouldn't be an RTA.

"I think the RTA and the services it does offer are going to be evolving into something even better. That's what our goal is. And in this next year, that is something the management team is going to do: We're going to sit down and actually come up with some goals that we want to meet. ... And, we're going to be sending out some surveys here in the next several months to see what people want, so we can get an idea of a direction we need to look at."