Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Thousands of Central Texas citizens rely on the Hill Country Transit District, also called the HOP, for means of transportation. Due to a steady decline in funding, Hill Country Transit District has requested that rural counties in the district begin committing local funds for its services.
Coryell County Commissioners approved an annual interlocal agreement that includes a contribution of $50,000 toward HOP services in Coryell County at Commissioners Court on Nov. 28. Beginning in 2024, this will be the first year the county will pay out-of-pocket funds for the program.
“For us to remain solvent, the transit district came up with a way to have an internal formula for what each county would need to pay to maintain the same service levels or close to the same service levels for what they have provided historically,” said County Judge Roger Miller, who is also on the Board of Directors for the Hill Country Transit District.
The agreement was originally voted down during Commissioners Court on Nov. 14 due to a request for more information about ridership numbers in the county. According to the district’s rural division report presented by Commissioner Kyle Matthews at the next meeting on Nov. 28, there were a total of 1,434 HOP rides in Coryell County over a three-month period from July 1 through Sept. 30.
The majority of the trips were for medical and shopping needs, per the report.
“I was impressed with the numbers somewhat,” Matthews said.
Along with the $50,000 contribution, the county receives $197,197 from federal and state funds as well as a $30,595 Medicaid contribution for non-emergency medical trips. Due to a considerable amount of ridership to Bell County for shopping and medical needs, Miller said Bell County is also contributing $23,516 toward public transportation in Coryell County. The total budget for public transportation is approximately $301,309.
“We have around a 300,000 budget for rural transportation in Coryell County, and it’s costing our taxpayers 50,000 to get that 300,000 worth,” Miller said.
Gatesville Senior Center Director Pam Rudolph said HOP services are often utilized by the center’s clients involved in their Meals on Wheels program, which provides older adults with home-delivered meals who are homebound and cannot drive.
“I do think the HOP transit is very beneficial for our clients,” Rudolph said. “I know a lot of our Meals on Wheels clients take them back and forth to doctor’s appointments, to the grocery store, even to come up here for special activities and events.”
In 2024, Miller said they will monitor the number of requests for rides and trips that are unfulfilled to determine if the county needs to increase or decrease the level of services being provided.
“That will let us measure if we are really providing our citizens with the public transportation that they are wanting,” he said.
The HOP provides on-demand services in Coryell County that include five buses and three bus drivers, plus one driver shared with Hamilton County. Hours of operation are Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“There is no other provider that can take these people to where they want to go. It is so costly for the rural areas just because of the fact that we have to travel so far to pick up one or two clients that live out in the rural areas throughout county,” said Tony Austin, director of rural operations for Hill Country Transit District.
Hill Country Transit District has provided rural transportation services to nine counties since the 1960s, serving Coryell, Hamilton, Lampasas, Milam, Mills, Mason, Llano, Rural Bell, and San Saba counties. Since then, they have incorporated two urban transits in Killeen and Temple.
Austin said the decline in funding started in 2018 following a loss of contract with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission for Medicaid trips. While federal COVID-19 relief funding helped cover services until 2022, the loss of those funds determined that the counties would need to contribute locally to maintain services.
“What we noticed before COVID-19 is there was a possibility that we are going to have to ask counties to start providing local funding to be able to continue the services,” Austin said. “The counties have never had to pay into the service since the conception of it in the late 60s.”
Currently, rural fares have been temporarily suspended as a way to encourage ridership following a decline during the COVID-19 pandemic. Austin adds that the district lost about 70 percent of their ridership throughout the region. While the district is looking at raising fares again, he said he doesn’t know when or how much it will cost.
“Right now, we’re at a little plateau of not increasing our ridership but we are not losing any of our ridership either,” he said.
However, Austin adds that there are plans to transition the HOP to a microtransit service that utilizes a phone app that allows riders to order a ride and monitor when it will arrive and take them to their desired destination. The district will begin a pilot program with Fort Cavazos starting early next year.
“Hopefully it gets a little bit better and a little more accurate for our clients,” Austin said.
