2022 Rural Fellows—Nebraska Energy

Anner Kluthe Author

08/08/2022 Added

12 Plays

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Student and Community Fellows talk about the community development projects they worked on with the Nebraska Energy team during Summer 2022.

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[00:00:08.010]I am working with the city of Lincoln and specifically
[00:00:12.150]the nonprofit Norfork Area Transit
[00:00:16.380]to get a better idea of the environmental effects
[00:00:21.570]that their bus system has on the community at large.
[00:00:24.030]And this is both in terms of internally,
[00:00:26.760]what their buses are doing
[00:00:29.010]and the environmental impact of their buses specifically,
[00:00:32.377]but also how much energy and gas is being saved
[00:00:36.030]for people using the bus
[00:00:37.320]instead of taking a personal vehicle.
[00:00:40.980]And so we are doing the calculations for that this semester
[00:00:44.580]and that will compound every year as the bus system grows
[00:00:48.870]'cause it's a very new bus system.
[00:00:50.309]With your project
[00:00:52.087]helping us look potentially at alternative fuels,
[00:00:56.040]alternative fuel impacts to our system,
[00:01:01.045]that's gonna help us control cost, keep costs down
[00:01:03.960]so we can keep cost service down\
[00:01:07.865]and continue to meet a new demand in ridership
[00:01:11.250]for rural public transportation.
[00:01:15.596]UNL is doing and you're doing is helping us, you know,
[00:01:20.520]get the information in place that we need
[00:01:22.710]to make intelligent decisions around our fuel sources
[00:01:26.790]and our vehicles.
[00:01:28.367]But then also go to,
[00:01:30.577]we can take that information
[00:01:33.960]to some of the elected officials,
[00:01:36.660]to the department of transportation,
[00:01:38.580]to the federal transit authority,
[00:01:40.620]and use this information to help support the need
[00:01:45.390]for funding or for getting other types of vehicles approved
[00:01:52.740]for purchase and use here in Norfork.
[00:01:58.110]It's been, you know, I don't wanna say it's convenient,
[00:02:01.680]but with fuel prices escalating right now like they are
[00:02:06.540]with some of the inflation that we're seeing in the markets,
[00:02:10.740]higher interest rates, I think,
[00:02:14.511]I think the the fact that public transportation is very,
[00:02:18.480]very visible now in Norfork.
[00:02:22.710]And we're seeing ridership grow at record rates,
[00:02:28.560]a hundred percent a year.
[00:02:31.230]Three years ago, we were we were moving 25,000 people around
[00:02:35.580]on an annual basis.
[00:02:37.543]This most recent year end, we had 70,000 trips.
[00:02:42.330]We're expecting to hit 150,000 trips this next fiscal year
[00:02:47.648]for the local transit system.
[00:02:50.760]And so that's very significant growth.
[00:02:56.242]And the other thing that we're doing here is
[00:03:00.150]we're working with surrounding counties.
[00:03:04.230]I would say today we have Madison county signed up
[00:03:08.880]in a significant way through,
[00:03:11.070]as a funding sponsor.
[00:03:14.010]We anticipate having two to three more
[00:03:16.740]of our surrounding counties signed up.
[00:03:20.550]We are,
[00:03:21.690]we'll be providing transit services
[00:03:24.540]primarily for work purposes.
[00:03:27.630]Getting people to Norfork
[00:03:29.280]for some of our major manufacturers
[00:03:32.970]or moving people from Norfork
[00:03:35.610]or other surrounding communities
[00:03:38.070]to other manufacturers that are not located in Norfork.
[00:03:43.200]Those are longer trips.
[00:03:44.670]And so the fuel impact will be greater on those
[00:03:48.570]and therefore, obviously the cost is gonna be greater.
[00:03:52.290]We are confident that we would see a demand growth
[00:03:54.900]but nothing like what we are seeing.
[00:03:57.822]And so we're pleasantly surprised.
[00:04:00.124]We're,
[00:04:01.182]it's nice to be able to turn around and show, you know,
[00:04:05.730]our citizens and our elected officials
[00:04:08.130]that there was a demand there, that we weren't wrong.
[00:04:12.210]It is there.
[00:04:16.894]And if you can properly structure a transit system
[00:04:21.570]and provide,
[00:04:22.734]there's a variety of transit services we provide.
[00:04:26.490]We provide a flex route system, which is a,
[00:04:30.090]basically a fixed-route system that can flex off the route.
[00:04:34.740]We provide para transit or demand-response transit.
[00:04:38.327]That's the same thing where they call in advance.
[00:04:41.790]We're doing night services,
[00:04:44.220]we're doing more specific services
[00:04:49.442]around the city to help move,
[00:04:52.440]move workers or students around the community.
[00:04:58.560]We're working with businesses now that, like I mentioned,
[00:05:01.620]that are outside of the community that need staff.
[00:05:04.860]And so we're setting up routes to surrounding communities,
[00:05:08.400]which has a benefit even though the initial conversation
[00:05:12.352]is about getting workers to surrounding communities.
[00:05:17.854]Once we start working with these businesses
[00:05:20.400]to get those routes in place,
[00:05:22.650]now we have a route to that community.
[00:05:24.900]So people from the community can come back into Norfork
[00:05:31.351]and be part of the greater north Norfork area.
[00:05:37.947]And I think when you guys were in and meeting with
[00:05:43.753]the Norfork Area Transit staff and had an opportunity
[00:05:47.040]to answer questions there with Jeff and his staff.
[00:05:51.193]I think they were able to
[00:05:55.050]present a larger conversation
[00:05:58.410]about transit and transit needs
[00:06:04.294]and some discussion around again, around the vehicles
[00:06:06.683]and the fueling sources for those vehicles
[00:06:11.277]and how that research that you guys are doing
[00:06:16.321]is gonna support their ability to
[00:06:19.020]continue to grow the service
[00:06:22.709]and help provide justification
[00:06:24.330]to some of our funding partners in terms of why we might
[00:06:27.390]at least need more upfront capital for a vehicle purchase.
[00:06:32.010]But that's gonna, in theory,
[00:06:34.487]reduce our long term operating costs
[00:06:38.490]for those vehicles.
[00:06:39.763]I think really one thing that I've learned this summer
[00:06:43.410]that I'm taking away is that
[00:06:46.050]a lot of work, especially that's done in government,
[00:06:49.650]it does take time.
[00:06:50.550]It does take patience.
[00:06:52.350]Just because everybody is running around
[00:06:54.930]and doing a million different things,
[00:06:57.390]and they're busy.
[00:06:58.410]So sometimes you can't get everything as fast
[00:07:01.950]as you would hope to.
[00:07:03.390]You just have to be patient and plan for that
[00:07:05.190]ahead of time just to make sure that you have the buffer
[00:07:08.220]that you need.

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2022 Rural Fellows—Nebraska Energy

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