BARNSTABLE – The Cape Cod Joint Transportation Committee met last week and discussed positive ridership trends.
Although the CCJT was hit hardly by the pandemic ridership is slowly beginning to return to traditional norms.
“Typically, what we do every week is compare our ridership numbers to a year ago, and we have been slowly bumping up to about 70 percent of what our ridership is normally, and while we are still below from where we want to be in terms of ridership, it Is somewhat heartening to know how far we’ve come,” said Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority Deputy Administrator Noah Berger.
The CCRTA is also offering free rides to anyone travelling to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. All a rider needs to do to receive a free ride is notify the driver they are going to a vaccination site.
“As of yesterday, we’ve transported 183 people to vaccination sites. And we provide that service free, you just tell the driver you are going to get a vaccine and get a free ride,” said Berger.
Additionally, the CCRTA is in discussions with the state about any opportunities to assist the commonwealth and provide short-term funding now in exchange for future flexibility.
It is currently unclear how much the CCRTA will receive from the federal stimulus that was passed in March.
The final item discussed at the meeting was Cape Cod’s classification after the results of the 2020 census become available.
Currently, the Cape is just over the 200,000-person threshold to be defined as a large urbanized area which consequently leads to larger funding. However, changing definitions in the census could possibly change that.
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