The Transit Department continues to hire and train drivers. Administrative staff, Muna Rustam and Nancy Payne, have stepped in to fill many roles in the “operations” side of Transit, such as driver work schedules, SAM rides trip scheduling, counting fares, data entry, creation of performance reports and much, much more!! As the Director, I can not say enough about the staff in the Transit Department. Everyone is giving 115% to continue to provide the high level of service to which Sandy and the surrounding areas are accustomed.

At the January Oregon Transit Association (OTA) Board meeting, Transit Director Andi Howell was voted OTA President. This Assocation was awarded the State Leadership Award at the Community Transit Association of America (CTAA) Conference last June, for “providing creative, effective and continuing training and technical assistance programs, using new concepts, strategies, procedures and policies to provide support to local transit systems, and more.” This award illustrates the strength of the Association and the members that serve on that board; I am very proud to take the lead for the next two years.

Ridership was up in January 2020 as compared to January 2019, an overall increase of 11.04%.  SAM services provided 10,974 rides in January, compared to 9,883 in January 2019.  8,074 of those rides were on the SAM Gresham route, an increase of 8.07%.  The SAM Estacada route is experiencing increases in ridership as well, with 47.8% increased ridership.  The Shopper Shuttle increased by 111.7% providing over 1,000 rides in January.  SAM rides experienced a decrease of 24%, likely due to a combination of more available shopper shuttle hours and dispatch/scheduler changes. The Edlerly and Disabled medical rides program (ED) also saw a decrease of 9.4%.