Although the rural life of wide open spaces, small towns and knowing your neighbors is very appealing, living in a rural area has its disadvantages as well. The grocery store isn’t always open 24/7, it would be hard to find a designer purse at the local L&M Fleet, and there isn’t a bus stop on every block. The lack of bus stops or lack of buses in general, can pose big problems for those who have chosen to discontinue driving – for a few months, years or permanently. How are they supposed to get to the grocery store? Doctor’s appointments? Errands? Work? If they lived in the city, the options would include the bus, a cab, biking, walking, etc. but for rural residents most of those opportunities are not readily available for them to use.
Tri-CAP is working to address these gaps in services through the creation of the Transportation Resource Center. Whether we are collaborating with other volunteer driver programs, providing rural public transit bus service, or gathering the local transportation resources into one site for easier access, Tri-CAP and the TRC is there to help anyone with a transportation need. This is becoming increasingly more difficult each year as transit funding for Greater Minnesota is more and more difficult to secure and even harder to expand. The main goal of this program is to gather the existing resources and attempt to use them more efficiently, if possible, and help to ensure Greater Minnesota transportation efforts continue to move in the right direction. If you have any resources to offer or suggestions on better efficiency, please feel free to contact the TRC at 320-257-4456.