Sandy Transit’s first kick-off meeting for the updated Transit Master Plan was January 9th. Representatives from Sandy, the County, ODOT and several consultants spent the day on various aspects of the Master Plan. The first big outreach event will take place in March, stakeholders will begin to receive emails and invitations in February.

Sandy staff submitted 5 grant applications to the Special Transportation Fund Advisory Committee in January and gave a presentation to the committee on the importance of the funding to the elderly and disabled population in Sandy. Caren Topliff, a member of Sandy Transit Advisory Board, and Andi Howell, Transit staff, serve on the STFAC board. There is approximately $7.4 m available for region 1 (which includes TriMet) elderly and disabled programs through STF and $8 million through 5310. Funding from both STF and 5310 are decided by the STFAC board. The committee will announce grant award recipients by the end of February.

Sandy Transit released an RFQ for 2 new medium sized buses. 2 state-contracted vendors bid on the RFQ. The bid and vehicle information will be presented to City Council at the February 19th meeting for approval of the procurement.

In January, SAM began using tablets only for passenger counts. Until January, SAM had always used pencil and paper to count passenger rides and since July had been using the tablets and paper.

SAM services provided 9,883 rides in total, an overall decrease of 4.6% as compared to the previous January. SAM Gresham provided 7,471 of those rides, a drop of 11.7%.  SAM Estacada, however, experienced a 14.5% increase in ridership. The SAM Shopper increased by 112% as compared to January of 2018. STAR dial-a-ride increased by 18.1%. Elderly and Disabled rides decreased by 17.2% from 64 to 53 rides.