By Emily Kern
The Advocate
Copyright 2006 Capital City Press
All Rights Reserved
FEMA plans to offer a new bus transportation service starting Monday to hurricane evacuees in group sites, including Renaissance Village near Baker.
LA Moves will provide regularly scheduled bus service to all group sites in Louisiana with 20 or more families, Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman Manuel Broussard said Thursday.
Many evacuees have been worried since FEMA announced its transportation system for them was coming to an end. Many have no cars.
The relative isolation of some trailer sites - which makes it impossible for people to walk to stores and banks - compounds the problem.
The new program includes 50 fixed routes throughout the state, serving 111 sites and roughly 16,500 people, Broussard said. Most routes will run twice a week, he said.
The routes will provide access to “all essential shopping,” Broussard said. Routes typically will include stops at a bank, pharmacy and grocery store.
FEMA has sent letters to evacuee trailer parks spelling out the schedules.
Since hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA has funded transportation for residents affected by the storms. The LA Moves program will incorporate many of the routes run under the statewide emergency transportation plan.
Under the old plan, buses operated by the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority supplemented service in Baton Rouge by the parish’s Capital Area Transit System.
Funding for RTA to operate in Baton Rouge expired in November. In December, service was provided through a contract with Reliant Transportation Group.
CATS interim general manager and CEO John Denman has said he is concerned about his ability to meet the needs of the disabled. The system’s paratransit service, which provides rides to disabled people, has been strained since Katrina by the additional people from New Orleans.
Denman submitted a proposal to FEMA and the state transportation department to obtain additional hours of service, which he said was $55 an hour for 700 hours per week.
At first FEMA agreed to fund 400 hours per month, Denman said. He said Thursday that FEMA has agreed to fund 500 hours per month of paratransit service, but only to hurricane-evacuee trailer parks.
Denman had asked for assistance in meeting the needs of new residents living throughout the parish.
“It’s going to put a strain on us to provide that,” he said. “We’ll do the best we can.”
Charlotte McGee, who lives in Renaissance Village and sits on the trailer park’s resident council, said she initially was told Sunday bus service would be cut. She said she also was told buses operated under LA Moves would not stop at Wal-Mart in Baker.
“I just found out today they are doing so,” she said.
However, McGee said she is concerned that New Orleans’ RTA employees are no longer providing the service.
“A lot of people from RTA have lost their jobs,” she said. “We were getting good service with RTA. They really met the needs of the people.”