april_2018

200 201 THE GREATER RICHMOND TRANSIT COMPANY Department of Rail and Public Transportation (VDRPT), and local funds. When GRTC was first incorporated in 1973, it was solely owned by the City of Richmond; in 1989, Chesterfield County opted to purchase half own- ership of the company. Prior to GRTC forming, it operated as a private transit company with different names and under different owners, dating back to 1860 when it was the Richmond Railway, a trol- ley-based service. Recently, Business ViewMagazine spoke with Car- rie Rose Pace, GRTC’s Director of Communications, who informed us about some of the company’s upcoming programs and projects.The following is an edited transcript of that conversation: BVM: What’s on tap for the coming year at GRTC? Pace: “2018 is going to be GRTC’s most historic year.We are launching our first rapid transit ser- vice in Virginia’s capital city. It is called the GRTC Pulse. It’s a bus rapid transit (BRT) system–7.6 miles long, servicing two jurisdictions, the City of Richmond and Henrico County. There are 14 stops along the way. It utilizes transit signal prioriti- zation (TSP). Portions of the route are bus-only lanes, including in the middle of the road and curbside, and we have a dedicated fleet for the Pulse –10 vehicles. “The BRT buses are built by the Gillig Corpora- tion in California. They are a compressed natural gas, BRT+, 40-foot model. The design allows the vehicle to perfectly dock with a 15-inch-high BRT platform. So, no matter how heavy we weigh down the bus, or how light it is, the bus will meet that 15-inch height to perfectly and easily dock with our platforms. That’s one of the speed fac- tors that you get when designing a BRT system that has platform-level boarding. It was import- ant for those vehicles to have that capability. They are intentionally rubbing a rail – it’s a rubber cushion along the side of the platform - so the bus operator will know that contact has been made with the station with no gap between the platform and the bus. That allows for individuals in mobility devices, or those who may have other challenges, to easily get on and off of the vehicle without having to wait for a ramp to deploy and having to navigate it up or down. BVM: How was Pulse financed, and when will it be operational? Pace: It is funded with federal, state, and local dollars. GRTC received a federal TIGER (Transpor- tation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant in 2014.We were one of the largest TIGER grants issued that year at $24.9 million. GRTC operates pretty close to the national average for fare box recovery versus subsidy. The nation- al average is 80/20–80 percent subsidized, 20