By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

Silver Rider Transit company will begin providing a once a month transportation opportunity to the residents of Moapa Valley next month. Beginning on Monday, March 5, and then continuing on the first Monday of every month, the regional Southern Nevada Transit Coalition member company will provide transportation from the Overton Senior Center to Glendale. From there, riders can either connect with the company’s Las Vegas Express bus or be transported to Mesquite.

Since last summer, the Overton Senior Center had been providing the connecting transportation to Silver Rider’s Las Vegas Express in Glendale. According to Senior Center officials, each week, the Senior Center vehicle transported one or two passengers who needed transportation into Las Vegas for medical visits or other reasons.

Unfortunately, grant funding for the service has been drastically cut. This year, the County did not renew the Senior Center’s Open Agency Grant that, in the past, had paid for the service. SO with no funding to pay the program’s expenses, Senior Center officials were about to make the decision that the service had be discontinued, officials said.

That is when Southern Nevada Transit Coalition Executive Director Deb Dauenhauer got involved. She was contacted by staff from Commissioner Tom Collins office to see what could be done.

“We worked at it for a while and finally found a way to fund it through our NDOT grant,” said Dauenhauer. “It is only down to once a month service; that’s not very often. But it is better than nothing at all.”

Dauenhauer emphasized that the service is available to anyone in the community, not just seniors.

“Our focus is on the rural areas of Clark County,” Dauenhauer said. “We understand that rural residents need access to urban areas for medical services, to go to stores and other reasons. For some that is a challenge. We are trying to address the problem of people being locked up in a rural area with no access to the services they need.”

Silver Rider will provide door to door pick up for registered seniors or for qualified paratransit passengers, people with physical disabilities. All others will be provided access to transport from the Overton Senior Center stop.

The monthly bus is scheduled to leave the Senior Center on the first Monday of each month at 8:15 a.m. It will connect up with services in Glendale and depart from there to either Las Vegas or Mesquite at 8:45 a.m.

Riders must make reservations in advance to take the bus. Reservations must be made no later than the prior Thursday at 4:00 p.m. To make reservations or for more information, Moapa Valley residents can call Silver Rider at 702-346-7006.