In Coles County, Dial-A-Ride is the only public transportation in the area. It offers door-to door service.as well as the Zip Line, which operates as an express service, stopping at designated stops in both Mattoon and Charleston.
The headquarters of the Dial-A-Ride transportation is located at the LifeSpan Center. Dial-A-Ride is sponsored by the Coles County on Aging. The Program Director, Kaycie Sanders, oversees the Dial-A-Ride operation and her supervisor is Kim Edwards, Executive Director on the Coles County Council on the Aging.
Regarding prices, Sanders explained “any door-to-door service within Charleston/Mattoon is $3, going between the two cities or going to Lake Land College in a door-to-door service is $4.”
“Going roundtrip from Coles County to Champaign, Douglas and Effingham Counties are $7 per ride or $14 round trip from approximately ten a.m. to two p.m. The bus only goes to Champaign on Mondays, Douglas on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Effingham on Wednesdays.”
In addition, she stated, “the monthly pass is $40, the zip line token bags are $10 each with 13 tokens and the Zip Line fare is $1. A passenger can board the bus with one Zip Line token.”
She revealed “the Dial-A-Ride operation is both a state and federal funded program. In 1991, it became public transportation, for all ages and abilities due to additional funding from the state. Prior to that it was only for seniors and people with disabilities. The Zip Line operation started on Monday, October 1, 2012.”
She mentioned “you can make your reservations up to two weeks in advance. The more advance notice that you give us increases the likelihood of the time and day that you requested. The phone number to dial to make reservations is 1-800-639-5169.”
When asked whether or not there will be any changes in the future, such as being open for later hours along with running at least on Saturdays, she added “We got to have financial investment and donations to the transportation service from the community in addition to the federal and state funding that we already receiving.”
You can call the abovementioned number to schedule a ride to and from Lake Land College at either eight, nine, noon and five when the college is open for business. In addition, the Zip Line bus stops at Neal Hall at :35 on the hour from eight to four.
3:35 will be the last bus that you can either transfer to LifeSpan Center, continue to Charleston or go to any stop along the route prior to the college. The 4:35 bus will only drop you off at the Mattoon Wal-Mart before terminating at the LifeSpan Center.
In regards to the door-to-door service, Dial-A-Ride has a ‘No Show Policy,’ meaning that the driver will wait only five minutes for the passenger. If the passenger does not show up within five minutes of the driver pulling up to their residence, the driver will move on to its next pick up and the passenger is tagged a ‘no show.’
When a passenger accumulates three no shows in a short amount of time, their privileges will be temporarily suspended. Serious infractions listed on the website may merit a passengers’ riding privileges to be banned for a year or permanently banned.
Dial-A-Ride is the only public transportation in Coles County so let’s continue to support it in order for them to increase services for higher ridership. You can view the Dial-A-Ride website at Home (dialaridetransit.org).
