The Rural Transit Assistance Program (49 U.S.C. 5311(b)(3)) provides funding to State Departments of Transportation through the Federal Transit Administration’s 49 U.S.C Section 5311 Formula Grants for Other than Urbanized Areas (CFDA 20).
The goals for the Minnesota RTAP is to provide positive customer focused service to the transit agencies by engaging with them to know their training needs, offering the right opportunities for knowledge transfer and advancing the skills and competencies to the individuals providing transit in Greater Minnesota.
The program focuses on
- Enhancing the quality of training and technical assistance
- Encouraging and assisting with peer networking and engagement
- Advancing the skills, competencies, and knowledge for all
- Providing proactive communication supporting RTAP trainings, workshops, effective practices and opportunities
Strategic Plan
Here is the link to read and download the Minnesota RTAP strategic plan, drafted in April 2020, and updated in December 2021.
Annual Reports
These objectives will be monitored with these metrics
- Reporting of required training and identifying dates for renewal for compliance
- Offering scholarships based on requests and criteria
- Monitoring trainings, workshops, and seminars with participant review forms
- Providing training records to transit providers
- Tracking training needs validated with input and solicitation.
Minnesota’s RTAP actions include developing and distributing training materials, providing technical assistance, creating web-site based registrations, producing reports, publishing best practices with newsletters, and offering peer assistance to our Greater Minnesota transit providers.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Office of Transit and Active Transportation (OTAT) manages the FTA grants associated to the RTAP. Refer to their website for other questions you may have associated to Transit in Greater Minnesota. Including how to become a Section 5310 transit provider or who are the various transit providers in our state. The website for MnDOT OTAT is http://www.dot.state.mn.us/transit/
Suggested Training
Our office anticipates a huge growth of transit use throughout our entire state. Aligning to this anticipated growth, RTAP supports the transit agencies by investing in our transit team members with training, workshops, seminars, and on-the-job skill based training. RTAP’s catalog of courses identify courses for your new hires, refresher courses for your experienced team members and courses that can enhance a specific skill or competency for a specific job within a transit agency.