Sound Move - The Ten-Year Regional Transit System Plan

Innovation Fund

Since we live in an age of continual change, Sound Move provides flexibility to consider new ideas, services and technology innovations.

The RTA will evaluate and fund innovative ways to provide transit service, reduce dependency on single-occupancy vehicles, improve public transportation's cost-effectiveness, and better respond to customer needs. The RTA will evaluate technological innovations (alternative fuels and propulsion systems, quieter equipment, lighter vehicles, energy efficient engines, and ways to improve passenger comfort) and ways to reduce impacts on the environment. The RTA will also explore incentives and programs to encourage people to use regional transit more.

The RTA will work with the community and the private sector to take part in a demonstration of personal rapid transit (PRT) or other technologies. PRT is an experimental type of automated transit consisting of small cars running on a guideway carrying two to six passengers per car. The demonstration could show how PRT or other new technologies could be appropriate investments in future transit system phases.

By coordinating with local transit and other transportation services Sound Move will make it convenient and easy to move around the region. Crucial to the ten-year system plan and the entire regional transportation system are the mechanisms that make different transportation components work together to create an efficient network connecting the entire region. These mechanisms include:

• Coordinating local and regional transit schedules, tying services together and creating important regionwide connections,
• Building transit centers, park-and-ride lots and stations where different  types of transportation come together to make connections simple and efficient, and
• Developing a uniform pass or ticket that can be used on local buses, regional express buses and trains, making transfers easy.