Battle Ground Healthcare needs a stop

According to officials, bus stops aren’t easy to put in. 

Once upon a time, there was a C-Tran bus stop at Battle Ground Healthcare, a clinic off of Northeast 189th Street in Meadow Glade. Then a change in funding and jurisdiction got rid of it. Now the clinic’s director is asking for a stop to be reinstated, though the likelihood of it happening within the next few years is slim.

Battle Ground Healthcare Executive Director Sue Neal said a bus stop would be a benefit for the more than 1,700 clients served by the clinic annually. 

“Transportation and access is a major barrier for the people that we serve,” she said.

By BGHC’s nature, having public transportation would allow the agency to serve the exact population it has set out to help.

“We have a very comprehensive program to help the people who are struggling with access to healthcare,” Neal said. 

The clinic offers medical, dental, rehabilitation and chiropractic services, occupational, physical and speech therapy as well as vision and mental health referrals.

The clinic serves the uninsured and the under-insured, “the people who are falling through the insurance gaps of today,” Neal said. She cited that for the agency’s lifestyle-management-type classes, including one focused on managing chronic pain, “the main thing that we hear is that they just can’t get there.”

Currently, BGHC is about a half-mile from C-Tran’s Route 7 which services Battle Ground. She referenced a survey where more than half of responding clients said they would benefit from having a bus stop at the location of the clinic.

Neal noted that a $184,000 grant, a result of litigation against pharmaceutical company Pfizer, dried up in December last year. That money helped fund alternative transportation for many in the clinic’s “Taking Back My Life” pain management class where opioid dependence was a major focus.

Where did Meadow Glade’s bus stop go? 

C-Tran Chief External Affairs Officer Scott Patterson explained in an interview with The Reflector that until the first few years of the new millennium the agency serviced the area next to BGHC.

In 1980 C-Tran was a countywide agency, though in 2005 the agency’s board voted to reduce its boundaries to city limits. Prior to that, the agency had lost much of its funding following a voter initiative in 2001 that led to the loss of state matching dollars.

“It was a difficult stop even when we had it in place just based on the surrounding geography,” Patterson said. Though the clinic’s building has sidewalks in front of it, much of the road it’s on does not, particularly coming from State Route 503. 

“When we put a stop in we want walkability to every corridor,” C-Tran CEO Shawn Donaghy said. He explained that there were several variables regarding the cost of putting in a stop, though C-Tran Communication and Public Affairs Manager Christine Selk said that for putting in a shelter it cost about $5,000, plus any groundwork, such as putting in a concrete pad.

“In our current condition it would be difficult to serve that location,” Donaghy said about a BGHC stop. He added that an additional stop would affect overall trip times for Route 7.

Though the likelihood of a stop appearing in front of BGHC was slim, C-Tran officials noted that they had been serving the Battle Ground community more recently than in past years. He noted that Battle Ground City Councilor Adrian Cortes, who was recently named chair of C-Tran’s board of directors, had been working with the agency in order to increase the frequency of service for Route 7 which serves that city, now having stops at 30-minute intervals during weekdays. 

“Our first responsibility is to make sure we are providing the max amount of service we can to the city of Battle Ground,” Donaghy said. The city accounted for about 5 percent of the agency’s revenue in 2017 according to a financial report.

Donaghy noted that since the increase of frequency for stops ridership on Route 7 had increased by 20 percent. This was part of a general ridership increase of 3 to 4 percent annually, something he mentioned was counter to general declines in public transit ridership nationwide.

“The growth in Battle Ground is very impressive, and we want to be a part of that growth,” Donaghy said. 

Though a bus stop for BGHC was unlikely in the foreseeable future, Neal stressed that aiding those who can utilize the clinic’s services would be a net positive for those who would foot the bill.

“As taxpayers, we’re picking up the cost of people going to the emergency room when it’s not an emergency, but that is their only option,” Neal said. “That’s extremely expensive, and it’s burdensome on our health system as well.”

“Anything that we can do to improve the quality of life of our community is truly important,” Neal remarked.

{{tncms-inline content="<p class="p1">C-Tran’s ridership has increased for the second year in a row by 3.2 percent. In 2018 preliminary numbers show 6,219,064 trips, compared to 6,027,683 in 2017 and 5,943,926 in 2016.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p> <p class="p1">C-Tran is constantly able to track fixed-route ridership throughout the year using automatic passenger counters on board each bus. The numbers undergo a validation and audit process before they are confirmed by C-Tran, data is considered preliminary until audited and accepted by the National Transit Database.</p> <p class="p1">The 6.2 million total ridership recorded in 2018 included 5.9 million fixed-route trips, more than 250,000 trips on C-Van, the paratransit service for riders with disabilities, and about 35,000 shuttle trips to special events such as the Clark County Fair and the Fourth of July celebration at Fort Vancouver.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>" id="0ec686bb-4454-4f66-9924-b74c7e5ba166" style-type="bio" title="C-Tran Ridership Continues to Rise" type="relcontent"}}