Hanford Insider Encore Episode: Transforming Public Transit - New KART Transit Center Unveiled with Heather Corder

Encore Episode from January 14, 2024

Uncover the exciting transformation set to redefine public transit in Hanford with the new transit center project. Join me and our special guest, Heather Corder, the accountant auditor for the Kings County Public Transit Agency, as we explore how this initiative is not just a plan but a promise of enhanced accessibility and safety for the community. From the humble beginnings of KART in 1980 to its evolution with services like the GoKart system, Heather shares fascinating insights into the agency's growth and the pressing need to move from the cramped and constrained old hub near the Amtrak station. Get a firsthand account of the new center's strategic location at 7th and Harris, designed with the community's needs at its heart and set to open its doors in 2025.

With a vision that extends beyond mere functionality, the Hanford Transit Center is slated to become a vibrant community focal point. Imagine a spacious indoor waiting area with real-time updates, accessible amenities, and even a dedicated space for the Kings County Area of Governments to discuss public transit issues. We delve into how this project integrates into Hanford's downtown fabric, promising seamless traffic flow and an enhanced experience for everyone. Heather and I spotlight community-focused initiatives like the Avenal shopping cart service and a reliable medical transport service to Fresno, underscoring the agency's unwavering commitment to making public transit a cornerstone of everyday life in Hanford. Don't miss this episode packed with insights and the promise of a brighter, commuter-friendly future.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Hanford Transit Center Construction Project
• 6:31 Hanford Transit Center Expansion Project

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to the Hanford Insider. This is an Encore episode from January 14th with my interview with Heather Corder of CART. So over the last few weeks I can't tell you the number of times I've been asked about the construction going on at the corner of 7th and Harrison, downtown Hanford. It's a huge project. Following a tip from one of my listeners, I did some investigating and learned that the entire city block on the north side of 7th, between Harrison and Brown Street, will be the new transit center for CART. On this week's Community Spotlight, I'm pleased to welcome to the show Heather Corder, who is the accountant auditor for the Kings County Public Transit Agency. Welcome to the show, heather. Thank you, glad to be here. Hey, heather. So we've got some exciting news for Hanford and everything that's going on in downtown Hanford. But before we get to the future, let's touch a little bit on the history of CART and how CART is continually evaluating the need for public transportation in the area.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Sure. So CART started in June of 1980 as a joint powers agency which was comprised of Kings County, hanford, lemoore, corcoran and Avenel. But in 82, corcoran was able to meet their own transportation needs, so they dropped out, they withdrew from the agency. Meet their own transportation needs, so they dropped out, they withdrew from the agency. We're governed by a five-member board of directors, two of which are from the Kings County Board of Supervisors, one from the city of Lemoore, one from the city of Hanford and one from the city of Avonel, and so we operate eight fixed routes in the Hanford area, one route between Hanford and Lemoore and three county routes to Avonel, corcoran and Layton area, one route between Hanford and Lemoore and three county routes to Avenel, corcoran and Leighton and two regional routes out to Visalia and Fresno. So I can talk about the services that CART offers, which is we offer the fixed route, which is where the buses go around in a circle so you always know where they're going to be and what time they're going to be there.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Cart also operates the paratransit service, and this is for individuals who are unable to use the fixed route services and they still need transportation, so if they can't get to the stop or they can't get to the, the transit center. We, you fill out an application and you get approved for the service and we will pick you up and take you to where you need to go. Now the other service that's like that, that doesn't need an application, is a service called goCart. It's just like Uber where, except for the price is a lot less, so the bus will pick you up at your desired location and take you to the same location. Now, this is unlike paratransit. This is limited by city. So you have to go Hanford to Hanford or Lemoore to Lemoore with the GoCart service, but paratransit will take you from.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Hanford to Lemoore, if you need it. That's awesome. I know that you have a website that has all of your routes listed and, especially, it has the information regarding what we used to call dial-all ride, which we now call Uber of course. I know that the station down by the Amtrak area there has been a popular spot and we always see the buses there, but I imagine it's getting pretty crowded down there. What are some of the limitations that you have as you continue to grow and maybe outgrow this facility?

Speaker 2: 3:15

The limitations down there. It's a great site right next to the Amtrak, but it's also some of our riders do have mobility issues and it's difficult to get across those railroad tracks and it's not as safe as we would like it to be. Also, there's a lot of noise pollution over there, as anyone in Hanford knows. You can hear the train running through it 50 trains a day.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Yes.

Speaker 2: 3:38

And they do sometimes stop, and so our buses are trying to get out and come and go, and they can't quite move from that area because the train is there. The other thing is it's all outdoors and with the heat and the cold, and we have elderly folks, we have, you know, teenagers, out there in the heat during the summer and the cold during the winter, and we'd really like to get a place where they can stay inside so that they're not as affected by the weather. Also, it only has 10 bays and we have like we have 42 revenue vehicles and so we have more routes and, as I said, we have lots of routes that go in and out and all around, and we are running out of space. We are running out of space. We can't have all our buses there because we have too many. We only have 10 base, as I said, and so we need to move to someplace that's bigger and someplace that is more centrally located.

Speaker 1: 4:34

So that brings us to 7th and Harris. That was obviously a site that was chosen after a lot of studies and everything, and I love the location, the availability to downtown that's awesome. Can you tell us about what we're seeing currently at the site and then what we can look forward to in 2025 when it finally opens?

Speaker 2: 4:53

Yes, so currently at the site, they just started doing the leveling and everything and they'll start working on the ground the foundation pretty soon. We started this project back in 2017 and we did site studies and we did all the environmental requirements and we've been working on this for a while. Once we get this all built, we're going to be lucky because we're going to have the transit center there and the admin will also be there, and we're also. Kingsview is currently on that site. We're going to build a place for them to be there, and we're also King's View is currently on that site. We are going to build a place for them to be there, so they're not going to get moved. They'll still be. That's great news. Yes, they'll have a newer site to be at and also we can this way if people have any issues or problems. Cart will be upstairs, admin will be upstairs and downstairs will be our contracted employees problems.

Speaker 1: 5:45

CART will be upstairs, admin will be upstairs and downstairs will be our contracted employees. So that's great that you're able to allow Kingsview to still be on site, and they'll just move from the old DMV building into your building. That's outstanding.

Speaker 2: 5:54

Yes, because a lot of their clients do use public transit, so it's a lot easier for them to come and go from the site.

Speaker 1: 6:00

So then will the old DMV building be demolished later on in the process then?

Speaker 2: 6:04

Yes, it will, but we want to make sure that Kingsview and its clients have a place to go, so nobody's stuck without services. So tell us about the facility?

Speaker 1: 6:13

What are we going to see there? It sounds so exciting.

Speaker 2: 6:15

It's going to be amazing. So we've worked with I don't know if you remember what was there before, but there were buildings there before that were over 50 years old and they were boarded up and it was kind of a blighted area. But we're going to build. It's going to be two stories.

Speaker 2: 6:31

One of our things that we think about this is that we want this transit center to be a place where people want to go, because usually in transit centers people are just moving through. But we want to be where people want to be. So we're going to have a huge indoor transit waiting room where people can wait. It'll have the times up. You can see the buses going out from the indoor waiting room. You can see where the buses can come and go. It's going to have bathrooms.

Speaker 2: 7:01

It's going to have there are certain things that riders can't get from our contractors, so they'll be able to just come upstairs and get them from admin. Admin will be right upstairs from them. Also, kings County area of governments is going to be moving in there also, so we'll have all that. One of the really good things that's going to be there is the board center board meeting area so that if you ride the bus and you want to say something at the board meeting, it'll be right there. Right now we're at the city of Hanford because Kings County is doing construction, but it's a little more difficult to get to. So if we were able to put it right at, we're going to put it right at the transit center and we're going to have training rooms there and break rooms for our drivers, because currently their break room is 120 square feet for 32 drivers.

Speaker 1: 7:50

That's crazy. And that's that old train station building next to Amtrak. Yes, it is. It used to be out of Roosevelt School, out at the old Fort Roosevelt. That was actually one of the buildings that was brought onto that site for Fort Roosevelt and when Fort Roosevelt closed down they thought that that would make a great spot for it to put it next to the Amtrak station. It is an old railroad station. Yeah, that's really cool.

Speaker 2: 8:12

That's really. I love the history. I love the history. But we are, when we do the, we checked with the city of Hanford and we worked with them and we want to make sure that it really fits into the downtown, that we really that it's seamless of where it is, and the bus depot will not be able to be seen from 7th Street, so they'll be in the back so that they can come and go quickly and not hold up any traffic on 7th.

Speaker 1: 8:37

If you're hearing Heather pause, it's because we're in the conference room here at CART looking at these beautiful pictures. Make sure you stop by our social media sites on Instagram and Hanford Insider on Facebook and you can see the just wonderful plans that they have. I'm sorry, go ahead, heather. Nope, that's that's, yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:53

It's just it's going to be a great place for people to be. I think it's going to be very good for our riders and it's going to enable them to. It's going to the central location. We're going to change our routes. We'll have more fixed routes and less wait time at the center.

Speaker 1: 9:10

So I know one of the big things that the Kings County Area Public Transit Agency is doing is constantly evaluating the need for transportation. I know you talked about some needs that were being met in Avenal. Can you expand on that a little bit?

Speaker 2: 9:24

Yes, so we're always evaluating public transit throughout the year. Staff rides the bus every month or every two months and does surveys on there about what people need, what people want, that kind of thing, and gets feedback, that sort of thing. Cart has two public hearings a year so that people can come and talk about their needs to the board, or they can write in or they can call in Throughout the year. If people call in and say you know, we need another ride out to Avenel, that sort of thing, we add it to our list. One of our shining accomplishments that I'm very proud of is the fact that we were expanding the service in Avenel and we thought we knew what they wanted and so we went out there to talk to them and so they could be as excited about this new service as we were. And it wasn't a service they wanted and it wasn't a service they needed. But what we did is we listened to them and we listened to what they actually needed and what they wanted and we were able to make that happen. We were able to roll out. We call it Avenel shopping cart and we pick people up in Avenel and we bring them to Hanford and we let them do their shopping and then we take them home and we help them with their bags and they're allowed to bring more bags than they are on the regular Avenel route and we make sure that we have everybody because Avenel is a really tight community and so they don't mind waiting.

Speaker 2: 10:50

One of their fears was for Avenel is they get on the bus, and they got to leave by two o'clock. They have to be on that bus whether their prescription is ready or not, and anyone who shops in Hanford knows that sometimes prescriptions aren't ready and so what. But Avenel is a tight community and they all know each other and so they don't mind waiting for Heather to get her prescription and so that bus doesn't leave until we have all our people back. That's so nice. Now it is, and it relieved a lot of stress on them because they weren't rushing. They all know each other, they all know what time it goes back. If somebody's running a little late, it's okay, and we're able to carry their grocery. You know as many groceries as they need and they really enjoy it and they really like it and I'm very proud that CART was able to offer this service to them. So that's what we do when we do unmet needs. Even though we think we know what you want, we always listen to what you really do want.

Speaker 1: 11:45

So a service that CART offers that maybe not a lot of people know about is the ability to ride CART up to medical appointments up in Fresno. Can you tell us a little bit about how that works?

Speaker 2: 11:59

Yes, we have a service. A bus goes up to Fresno on Wednesdays and Fridays twice a day on Wednesdays and Fridays and it goes to a variety of medical facilities up in Fresno and Selma.

Speaker 1: 12:13

So these are certainly exciting times for CART and all of the transportation needs in Kings County and especially Hanford, with the building of this new transit center and I know that it is built with the city actually is not a part of this. It's actually been funded, and so can you tell us a little bit about the cost of it and then maybe wrap it up with an idea of when it might be completed and how to find out more information?

Speaker 2: 12:39

Yep, this is a pretty big project. It's a $35 million project CACAPTA applied for and received $19 million as a federal grant. Then we used our appropriations of federal monies for another $5 million. We also worked with Valadio to receive a five million dollar earmark and we are using two million dollars of our reserve and four million dollars of state apportionment. So we kind of, you know, puzzled all this stuff together so that we could make something nice for the community. They just broke ground and so we should be 18 months from now we should be done in June of 2025. And we'll probably be doing a opening, and I encourage everybody to watch our Facebook we have social media and go to our website, which is cartbusorg, to see all the updates that will be coming out. And the executive director said that we can have a party when we open up, so I'll be sure to invite you and put it all on the website so everybody can come.

Speaker 1: 13:41

Well, that's fantastic, heather, thank you for coming on the show and it's been a pleasure meeting you and finding out about the exciting plans. Thank you for having me. If you enjoyed this podcast and you'd like to show your support, you can go to buymeacoffeecom slash Hanford Insider to make a donation support. You can go to buymeacoffeecom slash Hanford Insider to make a donation. If you'd like to join the Hanford Insider email list, stop by my website at hanfordinsidercom to sign up for updates. You'll also get an exclusive copy of my newsletter in your inbox each week. I also need your help getting the word out about the show by liking and sharing on social media or telling a friend For more information about the show. You can find this podcast on Facebook, instagram, threads X and YouTube at Hanford Insider. If you have a show idea, be sure to email me at hanfordinsider at gmailcom and I'll look into it. Don't forget I'll be back on January 13th with all new episodes. Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful holiday season.