CARY, NC – Starting today, everyone in Cary has a convenient alternative to driving. C-Tran, Cary’s door-to-door transit service that was launched one year ago as a service only for Cary seniors and the disabled, has been expanded to serve anyone in Cary. With today’s addition of service to the general public, any person--visitor, resident, nonresident, businessperson working in Cary—can contact C-Tran up to two weeks in advance to make a reservation for door-to-door transport anywhere within Cary’s town limits. The fee is $2 one-way. For seniors and the disabled, C-Tran will also continue to take them anywhere in Wake, Durham, and Orange counties for medical appointments, and for the disabled only, C-Tran will continue taking them anywhere in the same tri-county area for employment.

"Our goal is to make full and best use of the investment the Town has in this system without sacrificing level of service for our seniors and disabled citizens," said the project’s coordinator Jim Parajon. Parajon expects the service to grow from an average of 72 trips per day to 160 per day.

The Cary Town Council decided to expand the service at their June 13^th meeting in order to provide additional transportation options to all Cary citizens in hopes of reducing traffic congestion and to take better advantage of a tremendous amount of excess capacity on the system’s nine vehicles. Increasing riders reduces the per trip cost to the Town by spreading the operational costs over more trips. And by offering the service to the general public, Cary can apply for hundreds of thousands of dollars of federal transit money available for such services.

"We believe we will qualify for $441,190 in Federal Transit Authority funding for the first full year of expanded operation," said Parajon. The Town will also add about $390,000 in transit support as a result of increasing the Vehicle License Fee in Cary by $5, from $10 to $15. "With the additional sources of funding available because of the expanded service, the annual net cost to the Town to operate C-Tran is expected to drop from $778,125 to $232,97.That translates into a drop in the per trip subsidy from $34.64 to $4.67."

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