JCATS breaks ground on expanded facility

By MIKE BOLLINGER

SELMA — Johnston County is the fastest-growing county in North Carolina, and with that growth comes the need for expanded public transportation services. A groundbreaking ceremony held Feb. 2 will allow the Johnston County Area Transit System to expand its facilities, and the intent is to expand services as well. “Public transportation will be a bigger part of what we have to provide,” said Johnston County Board of Commissioners chair Butch Lawter. “People need transportation to get to their jobs.”

Neal Conley, project executive with Bobbitt Design Build of Raleigh, the firm handling the construction, said the anticipated completion date for the new facility is October.

Lawter said a transportation study will be conducted in the near future. “As we grow, JCATS will be a part of that growing process to provide truly public transportation. We have a long way to go, but we’ve started on it,” he said.

Neal Davis, executive director of Community and Senior Services of Johnston County Inc., which operates JCATS, said the next step will include more transportation options. “Johnston County has never had a public fixed-route transportation service. Interest is growing all the time,” he said. “We will continue to work to get to where we want to be.”

The expansion into the lot next to the present JCATS facility at 1050 West Noble St. in Selma will allow JCATS to double its fleet, Davis said. At present, the service has 32 vehicles and more than 30 employees. He said the new building will allow for in-house employee training as well. “We’re required to do a lot of training,” Davis said.

When there is the threat of inclement weather, JCATS likes to have drivers meet in the mornings for briefings on what situations could arise, and the new facility will provide more room for those briefings.

In addition, Davis said, 12 passengers per day are transferred from one vehicle to another in the JCATS parking lot.

“The new facility will have a drive-through shelter as well as a passenger waiting area,” he said.

JCATS, Davis said, was formed in 1985. It moved to the present site in September 2004 and had 12 vehicles at that time. Now, the size of the fleet has almost tripled to 32 vehicles, he noted, “Our current modular office space and one-bay maintenance facility is severely undersized,” he said.

The purchase of the adjoining lot, approved by the CSS board in 2011, will expand the JCATS site to a total of 4.6 acres, Davis said. In 2015, the North Carolina Department of Transportation approved a feasibility study for the expansion, and that study was completed in 2017.

Davis said the study evaluated 11 potential sites for a new or expanded facility, and the conclusion was the current site was the most attractive for expansion. The 2017 study estimated the cost for the expansion at about $8 million.

“Our board set a goal to cut that cost in half. We looked at various types of construction that could be more efficient and less design intensive,” Davis said. “We ended up modeling our building after a fire station.”

The next step was funding, Davis said. Early attempts at obtaining grant funding were unsuccessful, as Johnston County and NCDOT submitted unsuccessful applications. Finally, in November 2019, a joint application from the county and NCDOT was approved in the amount of $2.9 million.

Davis said the county commissioners approved a local contribution of $597,000, and the CSS board

agreed to fund the remaining amount. In all, the project will cost about $4.3 million, coming very close to meeting the goal of cutting the original estimate in half.

JCATS, Davis said, is available 24-7 during emergencies. “This building is designed to serve as an emergency response staging area. It will have a larger conference and training area so we can conduct all our training indoors,” he said.

The building will also be able to serve as a short-term evacuation center. It will also be equipped with the necessary equipment for a generator to be used if need be.

CSS board of directors chair Jimmy Parker said in addition to Bobbitt Design Build handling the construction, Stephenson General Contractors of Smithfield will be the project manager. “We’re very confident the construction of the new facility is in great hands,” Parker said.

Davis said he and CSS board members visited several transportation facilities across the state as part of planning for the new facility. He expressed appreciation to Rep. Donna White and Steve Strickland, chair of the CSS transportation advisory board, for their help with the project.

Kevin Bowen, District 4 engineer for NCDOT, said expanded public transportation will be needed to support Johnston’s growth. “Public transit is vital to economic planning,” he said. “Johnston County will need to be further integrated with Raleigh-area systems, and this facility is designed with that in mind.”

Bowen took a moment to praise transportation workers for their efforts during the ongoing pandemic. “Transit workers have worked through difficult times courageously. Johnston County can be proud of all its transit workers and it can certainly be proud of this new facility.”

Davis said the people really being saluted at the groundbreaking were the drivers who are behind the wheel every day. “There has been lots of apprehension about coming to work. It’s a risky business. Our drivers and staff have continued to do what they have needed to do,” he said.

Every JCATS employee, Davis said, has been given a badge that reads, “I’m a front line hero.”

“We are in the process of moving toward the implementation of an expanded transportation system and make a commitment to the people of Johnston County,” Lawter said.

Lawter also shared a story about being in a restaurant and overhearing a conversation between three JCATS drivers. The drivers, he said, were talking about people they had picked up and how much those people needed the service.

Davis said the groundbreaking helped him reach one of his main goals as

CSS director. “This has been a main feature on my bucket list of accomplishments. This is the fulfillment of the work we’ve been doing over the past 11 years. It’s taken a long time to get to this point. I’m really proud to have had a small hand in an accomplishment such as this,” he said.

Most of JCATS’ business is from non-emergency medical transportation. The agency also provides several other contracted services. JCATS also provides Rural General Public transportation to riders when possible, however, seating availability is secondary to contracted services.

For more information about JCATS and the services it offers, visit www.cssjohnston. org or call 919-202-5030.