USE OF COOPERATIVES FOR ALTERNATIVE RURAL PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION: REPORT ON A NEW YORK STUDY

The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets conducted a study to examine the feasibility of using the cooperative concept to provide rural passenger transportation. On the basis of interviews with transportation providers in two study counties and an analysis of transportation in each county, three transportation alternatives using the cooperative approach were developed. The first alternative provides for a cooperative composed of public and private human service agency transportation providers and the users of that transportation service. The study details the activities such a cooperative may progressively undertake, beginning with a simple clearinghouse function and moving toward a cooperative that would assume all transportation responsibilities for its members. The second cooperative concept relies on a service club or civic organization to provide rural passenger transportation. Composed of service club members, human service agencies, and community residents needing transportation, the cooperative would depend on volunteers to maintain a transportation network for rural residents. A third alternative incorporates rural postal carriers in either the human service agency cooperative or the service club cooperative. Rural postal delivery routes extend into virtually all isolated rural areas and are a ready-made transportation system that can augment existing passenger transportation services at a low cost. By providing an array of flexible organizational options to supplement existing transportation resources at a low cost the cooperative approach can offer transportation alternatives, which are subject to local control and responsive to local conditions, to rural areas.