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The Granville County chapter of rural community organizing group Down Home North Carolina is asking county officials to increase funding for the KARTS community transportation service by $250,000 in next year’s county budget.
Reeves Peeler, a Granville County organizer with Down Home North Carolina, said during a rally at Oxford’s Hix Park Saturday in support of the “Be Smart, Expand KARTS!” campaign that the organization is pushing for the additional money in the 2024-2025 Granville County budget “so everyone can use this vital transit service.”
One goal is better pay for drivers and recruitment of more drivers.
“With more drivers, KARTS could provide much better service, lowering wait times, running more routes, and ensuring our tax money is well spent to provide a service that everyone in Granville County (and Vance, Warren and Franklin) can use,” Down Home North Carolina said in a handout distributed at the rally.
As of Saturday, Down Home North Carolina had gathered 337 signatures on a petition supporting the KARTS funding increase.
“We’re going to keep talking to folks about it,” Peeler said of the petition drive.
The petition drive faces an uphill path given the relatively short time left before the budget will be adopted, public pressure to fund other needs such as schools and public safety, and public opposition to raising taxes.
Peeler said the KARTS expansion campaign grew out of neighborhood surveys that Down Home North Carolina did in Granville County a couple of years ago. In responding to those surveys, he said, “a lot of people said a really good, reliable public transit service would really change their lives for the better.”
KARTS is “a great idea that needs more funding,” Peeler said.
Thomas Tharrington said at the rally that he loves using the service, but struggles with pickup times sometimes running behind schedule. He said he uses KARTS mainly to get to medical appointments at times when the weather makes it difficult to walk to them.
Fred Johnson, who has lived in Butner about three years and has worked in the area nearly 23 years, said he became interested in transportation issues a while back and has a long-term interest in pursuing a region-wide transit system that would have seamless service to and from Granville and surrounding counties such as Durham and Wake.
“I’m looking for alternatives to driving to work on I-85,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”
Johnson said relying too much on cars rather than on public transit is contributing to heat, smog and climate change. “The irony is we know that, but our systems aren’t planning around it,” he said.
He said towns in the area used to be connected by passenger trains.
“Maybe we have to repeat history here,” Johnson said. “You’ve got to anticipate the future, meaning you’ve got to plan for it.”
Johnson said he has heard from some users of the KARTS service that they have serious concerns about wait times. Some people on dialysis, for instance, spend much of their day on those days when they have dialysis waiting for KARTS, he saiid.
A woman who said she drives for KARTS and told the Butner-Creedmoor News she could not share her name because of her employment told those at the rally that she enjoys meeting people and helping them get where they need to go.’
“The service is really needed,” she said. “I love my job.”
She agreed that a pay increase would be nice, and thanked the group for advocating for that, but added it’s really a labor of love for her.
“I love my riders,” she said. “I really do.”