Project Memos

What do these memos include?

The Existing and Future Transit Needs Memo documents existing transit service and demographics in Umatilla County. It inventories Umatilla County’s current public transportation services, population, employment, and travel demands, transit service assessment, transit capital assets, other relevant plan findings, and outreach findings. These analyses were used to identify key transit needs and markets, and the service models to best address them.

The Vision and Goals Memo documents the overarching vision for transit service and supporting goals that will help guide the selection of appropriate strategies later in the project to enhance transit service, facilities, and amenities. Establishing a vision and goals for the Transit Development Plan not only supports the process of plan development, but also guides ongoing decision-making beyond the plan development. The vision is as follows:

Provide an equitable, safe, convenient, and coordinated transit network throughout Umatilla County that will support the health and well-being of Individuals, communities the economy and the environment.

The goals are presented below.

  • Goal 1: Equity – Build a transit system that meets the needs of users of all backgrounds, including a range of age, ability, income, and more.
  • Goal 2: Health and Safety – Foster public health by increasing use of active travel and improving safe access to the outdoors, health care, healthy food, and similar healthy places.
  • Goal 3: Mobility, Connectivity, and Convenience – Improve service coverage throughout the County, increase frequency and hours of service, and provide connections within and beyond the county to access the places riders need to go.
  • Goal 4: Sustainability – Foster environmental, economic, and fiscal sustainability through transit investments.
  • Goal 5: Coordination – Collaborate with public and private partners to maximize services.
  • Goal 6: Information, Marketing, and Technology – Improve awareness of and ease of access to transit facilities.

Memo 3: Future Service Opportunities describes service types that may address transit needs and begins to identify the service opportunities for each need. These future service opportunities include routing changes and new routes, service enhancements such as frequency and extended hours, coordination opportunities, facilities, and transit-supportive policy and code information. These opportunities will be evaluated and prioritized in Technical Memorandum #4: Future Funding and Preferred Projects according to funding constraints, the opportunities’ alignment with the vision and goals, and the public input provided through Survey #2.

The Future Funding and Prioritized Projects Memo evaluates and prioritizes the future service opportunities from the previous memo (Memo 3) based on evaluation criteria tied to the vision and goals and based on funding opportunities at the federal, state, and local levels. Recommendations include new routes, increases to existing route frequencies, bus stop improvements, technology and tools for riders, and other organizational improvements to keep costs low while providing exceptional service to the community.

Memorandum #5: Implementation Plan discusses the implementation plan for the prioritized projects from Technical Memorandum #4: Future Funding and Prioritized Projects, detailing the support and actions needed to turn high-level plans into on-the-ground transit services, including:

  • Capital and infrastructure plan
  • Staffing considerations
  • Management, marketing, and information plans
  • Governance and agency coordination
  • System performance monitoring

Each section includes a timeframe for when action is needed, the responsible party to lead the effort, and other parties involved in the decision-making and coordination.