It is a matter of fact that, throughout its history, the federal government designated Indian reservations in locations far removed from population centers. The validity of this generalization is obvious when one looks at a map of the reservations of federally recognized tribes. With few exceptions, the reservations are located outside of incorporated cities in the most rural counties, where a minimum of transportation infrastructure exists. Except for those reservations where the tribes have invested in their own road systems, or where population growth and home construction has extended out to the boundaries of the reservation, transportation within reservations (and even to and from the reservations from the surrounding non-Indian communities) normally consists of state or county roads, and few of them at that. Public transit services in these rural areas are few, if they do exist at all, and certainly do not provide reservation residents with the same sort of transportation options that are enjoyed by populations off of the reservation.
The success of tribal business enterprises is limited by the lack of good transportation infrastructure. Any business, whether gaming and tourist-related or not, requires that transportation for customers and employees be available and efficient. An obvious example is the gaming and resort enterprise, where a large number of customers and workers are needed to make the enterprise a success. The most beautiful casino or resort will not attract sufficient customers if customers cannot get there quickly and easily, nor will it be able to function if there is not a good transportation system available for the staff. For those who cannot drive or who choose not to drive, something other than smooth, paved roads is the answer. A scheduled bus system that serves the key population and commercial areas of the reservation is a must if community members are to be able to work, shop, go to school and church and accomplish the normal activities of a community.
For tourist- and visitor-related industries, a convenient transportation system to bring people into the reservation and back to their homes or hotels also is a necessity.
With the success of so many tribal business enterprises, and the desire of so many tribal governments to be “full-service,” (i.e., to exercise their inherent sovereignty and to give their members the full range of quality public services—police, fire, medical, educational, etc.—available to off-reservation populations, this appears to be the time for tribal leaders to consider improving the transportation systems of their reservations by forming or expanding tribal transit systems).
Without adequate transportation services, tribal members can’t access the improved services that are now being offered to them. But with adequate transportation services, including a transit system component, members can seek and hold jobs, attend schools, access health care and fully participate in community life.
A growth industry
It is the goal of this article to present options and considerations helpful for those tasked with designing appropriate transit systems for their reservations. It is done with the understanding that the concept of a tribal transit system is not in itself new. Although a small percentage of federally recognized tribes have started their own transit systems, the ones that have are experiencing significant success and growth. For example, several have been recognized as “successful models” by the Community Transportation Association, notably the Chocktaw Transit Authority in Mississippi, the Chickasaw Nation Transportation System in Oklahoma, the Navajo Transit System in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and the Shoshone and Arapaho Nation Transit Association in Wyoming. Just looking at the growth in the number of vehicles operated by one of the senior (20-plus years) tribal transit systems is illustrative of the growth that is being experienced in tribal transit systems—The Navajo Transit System has more than doubled its number of vans and buses in the last 10 years. What is new is the economic where-with-all to accomplish such an operation now that more and more tribes have implemented successful business ventures that are benefiting the members of their communities and allowing investment in the community’s transportation infrastructure of which transit systems are an integral part.
A menu of options
Options make it easier to design a program that fits the need of the customer in any endeavor. Transit planning—on or off of the reservation—is no different. The hard part is recognizing the need and making the commitment to improve transportation services on the reservation. Once the commitment is made, however, the task of designing a system that truly fits the needs and the financial health of the community is facilitated by having a menu of viable options to choose from, such as the following:
A transit system owned and operated by the tribe itself
The most obvious option is for the tribe to own and operate its own system. The equipment, the personnel and the day-to-day decision making will all be the tribe’s. This option gives the tribe the greatest control over scheduling, determining equipment needs and personnel management. It obviously assists the tribe in its goal to provide employment opportunities for its members. It also visually attests to the presence of the tribe and its sovereignty by providing “rolling billboards” with the tribe’s name and logo prominently displayed. But it also is the most costly, especially in the area of start-up costs. It is no cheap matter to start a transit system from scratch. These costs can be mitigated by spreading the growth out over time or by temporarily using one or more of the other options listed below.
Expanded coverage from county/ regional transit system
Rather than operating its own transit system, the tribe can negotiate with the local/regional transit system (if one exists) to expand service to and within the reservation. In Snohomish County, Wash., for example, a successful negotiation between Community Transit, a publicly-owned transit authority, and the Tulalip Tribes resulted in enhanced coverage to benefit the tribal community, whose reservation is experiencing very successful business growth in a number of ventures, including a beautiful new casino. Expanded coverage agreements may well be the most cost-effective option for a tribe, because costs can be spread across a larger number of users and supported jurisdictions, just as law enforcement services contracting has worked to keep the costs down for customer and vendor alike. In this model, the tribe would either be charged the incremental costs of the added routes and equipment or make a contribution based upon tax revenue from on-reservation businesses. The Tulalip Tribes, for example, contribute 9?10 of 1% of the sales tax revenues from on-reservation businesses as their share of the cost of the expanded transit services.
Partnerships—Interlocal agreement between equals
In the law enforcement services contracting realm, the interlocal agreement between a tribe and the local county or city is no different from an interlocal agreement between municipalities; governments come together as equals to partner in some manner for the good of each. Partnerships to form transit systems make good sense and benefit the members of both communities. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Public Transit System in Oklahoma is such a partnership. As described on its webpage, “The Cheyenne and Arapaho PTS is managed and administered by the Tribal Government and State of Oklahoma, Transit Programs Division.” Partnerships allow the sharing of equipment and both operational and overhead expenses.
Privatization—Contracting with a for-profit corporation
In a balanced study on “Privatization in Criminal Justice,” Prof. Bruce Benson noted, “Virtually everything governments do, including police, security, jails, prisons and court-related services, is being contracted out somewhere in the United States.” Transit systems are an obvious subject of out sourcing by contracts with a private company. The private bus company will provide equipment and personnel for a fee. This option is attractive, because equipment, personnel, maintenance and administrative support are all the responsibility of the company. The vendor has to provide the number of drivers and buses stipulated in the contract, saving the tribe from having to maintain extra buses, maintenance facilities and extra drivers on the payroll. However, an obvious concern is whether the contract company will allow tribal logos on the buses, be able to focus recruitment and hiring on tribal members or be willing to include cultural sensitivity training as part of its employee training programs. The wording of the contract between the tribe and the private vendor will be very important in assuring that these concerns are met.
Shared systems
A unique approach, probably most useful during the start-up period of the tribal transit system, involves shared use of vehicles by the various transportation providers of the tribe. There may already be vans and buses belonging to various programs on the reservation utilized to move their participants from place to place. Since many of those programs only operate during certain times of the day or certain days of the week, their vehicles may be idle and under-utilized. Coordinating the use of vehicles belonging to several separate entities may not be an easy task to accomplish, but making fuller use of these vehicles can be a great first step in the formation of a truly coordinated tribal transit system; this small step may have the benefit of saving the tribe from at least some of the enormous costs associated with starting a transit system from scratch. This very approach is recommended by the Community Transportation Association of America in one of its early Technical Assistance Briefs.
Hybrid systems
A hybrid system is really a combination of models. For example, the tribe may purchase the equipment, but contract for the operation of the equipment, including personnel and management. Or the tribe may own the buses, employ the drivers and provide day-to-day management, but contract out for maintenance. (Maintenance is a very important component of any system; we have seen tribal transit systems fail because insufficient consideration was given to maintaining the equipment.) As has been done by some tribes new to the casino/resort business, the tribe could own the equipment and employee personnel, while the day-to-day management of the system is accomplished by a private (or other governmental) entity, at least at the outset. Other examples of hybrid systems would be when the reservation transit system operates its own routes while sharing routes with a regional transit system, an “interline” situation in transit terminology, which is much like the “codeshare” arrangements among airline companies. Finally, the transit system could have a core number of its own coaches while making use of under-utilized buses and vans of other tribal agencies.
Developing a close eye
Maintenance, if not adequately considered, will drive up the costs of operation as service life of equipment is reduced and routes have to be canceled because of broken-down buses. Security—everything required to protect the facilities of the transit system and to provide a safe environment for employees and customers—must also be given attention and sufficient funding.
Thefts and vandalism to buses and facilities may make it impossible to keep buses on the road to fulfill the commitments of a schedule. Vandalized bus stops and graffiti-marred buses also are not inviting to potential customers. Assaults and robberies on customers and drivers deter ridership and make it impossible for the system to maintain a trained staff of drivers. Allowing disruptive activity, even if not specifically criminal in nature, makes people think twice about riding on a bus.
Attention to the numbers and types of crimes on transit facilities and vehicles is important for both transit management and the police—if for no other reason than to fulfill the crime analysis function that guides effective police operations. But even subjective elements, such as the fear and perception of crime, affect ridership.
Security, like the transit system itself, can be provided by any of a menu of options. Among security arrangements currently in place in transit systems, tribal and non-tribal, the three most common are:
Transit security/transit police
The transit system can have its own security personnel or even its own police department. If this model is utilized, however, there must be in-place real-time communication links—technological and personal—between the transit security/police department and the police departments through which the bus routes travel.
Off-duty police
Security can be provided by off-duty tribal or local (city or county) police (depending upon whether routes are totally on a reservation or include off-reservation routes). If this model is chosen, there will still need to be some minimum number of permanent security staff (civilian or commissioned) employed by the transit system to handle hiring, scheduling and crime analysis functions.
The tribal police department
The security function can be provided by the tribal police department, under the concept of one police department to provide all police and security responsibilities for the tribe.
Whatever system works best for the tribe and for the communities in which the transit system’s buses travel, security must be considered when budgetary decisions are made.
Money on board
Funding is the ultimate driver when determining the extent of transit services to be provided on the reservation. How important having a full-service transit system—or just a shuttle service to get customers to and from a casino, resort or on-reservation shopping mall—is to the community will determine the priorities that system is given during budget deliberations. Fortunately, there are several sources of funding for the transit system, and most transit systems are actually paid for from a variety of funding sources. Tribal leaders should adopt an active approach to fulfilling the funding level necessary to provide the level of service needed by the community. In doing so, they will be able to consider a variety of sources, as the following list demonstrates:
Tribal budget
Having the reservation transit system as a major program (line item) within the tribe’s annual budget is an obvious method of paying for the service. The amount of the cost of such a service that is paid through the tribal budget will be a reflection of the economic health of the tribal community and the priority that community places on having a scheduled transit system. But there is no reason why the transit system should be totally subsidized by the budget.
Casino/resort/business subsidies
Since the casino, resort or other reservation business ventures will benefit from the presence of a transit system to bring customers in from off-reservation (e.g., shuttles from hotels and senior citizen centers) or to carry employees to and from businesses on the reservation, they should help support it. For tribal businesses, a portion of their income should be designated in the budget to support the presence of a transit system. For businesses leasing land from the tribe, lease contracts should include provisions for contributions toward the costs of maintaining the transit system.
User fees: using the fare box
Users can be expected to pay for the luxury of being able to travel throughout the reservation on buses. One benefit of charging people a fare to use the system is that this practice gives them ownership in the system. While fare-box revenue should never be used as a method of achieving full-cost recovery, transit systems we contacted consistently reported that 20-30% of operating costs can be recouped by fare-box revenues. However, user fees must be reasonable, where reasonableness is defined by the economy of the reservation. And where the transit service exits to support a casino, resort or other on-reservation businesses, charging user fees may be counter productive and even deter usage; it may be better to have the service paid for, at least in part, by subsidies from the businesses benefiting from the existence of the transit service.
Another type of user fee is when idle buses are allowed to be chartered for group events, tours and other specified non-route activities. Obviously, the desire to earn income from allowing outside entities to charter the buses should not be allowed to impair the ability of the system to meet the demands of routes and schedules.
Advertising fees
A different type of user fee is the fee charged to businesses and other entities to advertise on or within the buses. Advertising fees will only cover a small percentage of operating costs, but they are still revenue sources that should not be ignored.
Taxation
As with all governmental entities, tribes have the inherent authority to levy taxes to support reservation services. If taxation (across the board or on commercial property only) seems workable, given the economic situation on the reservation, tribes should consider utilizing their taxing power to support the creation or expansion of transit systems. The Cheyenne-Arapaho Public Transit System, for example, receives allocations from the Tribal Tax Commission. The Tulalip Tribes in Washington state contribute 9?10 of 1% of their sales tax revenue as their contribution to expanded transit services for the reservation.
Grants: Federal, state, local and private
Grants from governmental entities, such as the federal government, are obvious sources of funding and should be utilized to the greatest possible extent. In fact, being eligible for federal grants is one of the benefits accruing to a tribe that has received federal recognition. Having said this, grants usually have stringent requirements, which will have to be fulfilled by the tribe. The Federal Transit Administration and the Administration on Aging have been the two federal agencies supplying the largest amount of support for transportation for American Indians. Some tribes have made the decision not to seek federal grants of one type or another, specifically because of the fine print and excessive demands to be placed on the recipient, but the various federal programs can be of great help to tribes that are considering starting their own transit system.
State grants may be available for the tribal transit system. Tribal bus systems provide a benefit to the off-reservation community, too. The tribal system may actually be the only bus service available in a given community, so states are often willing to provide grants to the tribes. This fact gives encouragement to the tribe to adopt a philosophy of service for its transit system that includes concern for the needs of the residents of the communities surrounding the reservation, not to focus solely on the needs of the reservation community. In those states which have state tribal recognition laws (such as in Arizona, North Carolina and Virginia), the state is a logical source for possible funding assistance.
Private grants also should be carefully considered as possible sources for funding for the transit system. Often the demands upon the recipient are much less onerous than those given by governmental entities. But whatever source of grants is being considered, having a knowledgeable grant writer on staff (or at least on a contingency and available to use when needed) will help the tribe be successful in locating and winning grant awards. Trained, experienced grant writers will have the skills to seek out often-overlooked grants and grant sources; they also will improve the tribe’s chances of being awarded grants because of their knowledge of terminology, phraseology and other tie-breaking components within the written portion of the grant application.
Cost-sharing through regionalization
Although not a funding source by itself, joining with other governmental entities by accessing regional services (as a customer or as a joint provider) can reduce the cost of implementing or expanding the transit system. One of the benefits of any type of contracting is the spreading out of administrative and other overhead costs over a larger number of customers. Partnerships with other governmental entities also may increase the tribe’s eligibility to obtain federal and other grants from governmental sources.
A loaded symbol
If the police department is a visible symbol of the identity and sovereignty of any government entity with uniforms and police car logos serving as “moving billboards” and symbols of authority, the tribal transit system can be seen as a symbol of tribal identity and sovereignty, not only by displaying tribal logos on the coaches and vans, but also as a demonstration of the municipal services the tribe is providing to its members and the surrounding communities. Transit services are not to be viewed in a vacuum; transit systems must be part and parcel of a community’s long-term, inclusive transportation plan. Transit services are but one component of the plan; highways and roads, and in some cases airlines, boats and other modalities, also are very important components of the transportation infrastructure. Buses obviously travel on roads and roads are required to provide access to the commercial and residential areas of the community. Geography may actually require the use of more than one method of transportation, but transit remains pre-eminent in terms of its usefulness to the greatest number of people. When the state or county is unwilling or unable to build a sufficient system of roads, the tribe may have to build its own roads, as are seen on large reservations such as the Navajo, to be able to make the most of the benefits accruing to tribes that operate their own transit system.
Having a long-term transportation plan will go a long way toward placing the funding of the transit system on firm ground. Community outreach to determine demand will interact with the tribe’s budget to determine the priority of the transit aspect of the tribe’s comprehensive plan.
The planning for a transit system will never be static; it must evolve based upon the needs and desires of the community it serves. The transportation plan, and its transit component, must be given the necessary budgetary priority if the transit system is to survive and thrive.
It takes dedication and wisdom to properly allocate limited resources between the many competing programs for which tribal government is responsible. But the cost of not giving transportation services the priority they deserve can be lost opportunities. The front page article of a Navajo Times online edition, for example, reported, “If Navajo officials don’t act soon, they may miss an opportunity to acquire new vans and buses for the Navajo Transit System for pennies on the dollar.” Finding the matching funds put at risk the tribe’s ability to benefit from several grants that could be used to update the transit system. Being flexible enough to react to funding opportunities like this is a challenge to all tribal leaders.
As tribes benefit from successes in their business ventures, many are in a stronger position to evaluate the need for a reservation transit system. Is this the time for your tribe to implement a comprehensive transportation plan to include a full-service or more focused transit system? Is this the time to make a statement about your tribe’s identity and sovereignty by implementing or expanding a tribal transit system? TME
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