By Margaret Franklin
Prince William County Woodbridge District Supervisor | OmniRide Commission Chair
As Chair of the Board of PRTC, I understand the importance of providing reliable, safe, and efficient transportation for residents around Prince William County and the D.C. area. The goal of our transit services – The OmniRide and the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) – has always been to get residents where they need to go while reducing congestion. OmniRide and the VRE rely heavily on our transit employees to help carry out these goals. Now with COVID-19 critically impacting our economy, our transit workers are even more vital in providing critical transportation services.
As our community faces unprecedented struggles during this pandemic, we are all coming together to lean on and support each other. Many brave community members fill the roles
of essential workers who are lifting us up and taking care of us. They are doctors, nurses, grocery store employees, restaurant workers and delivery workers. We are grateful that our public transit system is still up and running to get these essential workers to and from work. To all of our transportation employees– bus operators, dispatchers, mechanics, security, and frontline operations staff – we are deeply appreciative of your services to our community.
I want to personally thank all OmniRide for the work they continue to do and the sacrifices they are making to keep
our community moving. Thank you for the rigorous daily cleaning of buses and facilities, for encouraging riders to maintain social distancing, and for ensuring the road-worthiness of our buses.
Our transportation employees provide a necessary service to our community, which many of them also call home. We cannot take their service for granted.
Eventually, the stay-at-home order will be lifted, and we will begin to establish a new normal. Yet, many things will remain the same. The congestion will resume on I-95 and
I-66 and we will still need a reliable way to get to work, to medical appointments, the grocery store, and more. OmniRide will be ready to get you where you need to go. Again, THANK YOU OmniRide First Providers!
