Information Charlottesville

In April, transit officials from Vermont briefed the Regional Transit Partnership on efforts in the Green Mountain State to use public transportation to get students to their schools. (read the story)

That has led to further discussion on the matter in Albemarle County. Charmane White is the new director of the transportation division for Albemarle schools and she spoke at the partnership’s meeting on May 26. 

“I am having conversations now with our my supervisors and the Superintendent to look at how we would roll this out and of course we would have to get our community ready for this and parents and the administrators because this is just a different approach to what we have taken,” White said. 

White said the division continues to try to recruit new drivers with a series of job fairs. One possible way to alleviate the shortage is to purchase vehicles that don’t require a commercial driver’s license (CDL). 

Garland Williams, director of Charlottesville Area Transit, said city schools are also looking at this approach. 

“They are looking at the type A bus model themselves,” Williams said. “Fourteen [passengers] or less. They’re going to do to two at this point of time and see how the model works and then just scale up from there.” 

The University Transit System also has issues with a driver shortage.

“One of the approaches we’re taking a looking at is that CDL license barrier and how can we sort of attack that in creative ways,” said Kendall Howell of UTS. 

Howell said he would return to the partnership with some of those ideas later this summer. 

Watch the whole meeting:

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