For the fifth consecutive year, Bay Transit, the public transportation division of Bay Aging, has been recognized with an award from the Virginia Transit Association (VTA). At the VTA’s 2024 Annual Conference & Bus Expo in Harrisonburg, VA, Bay Transit’s Director, Ken Pollock, was awarded the Helen Poore Transit Professional Distinguished Service Award, in recognition of his more than twenty years of dedicated service to the public transportation industry. Bay Transit Operations Specialist Dina Cunningham was also recognized at the VTA Conference’s awards luncheon as a member of the inaugural class of VTA Leadership Institute Fellows.
Distinguished Service Award
The Transit Professional Distinguished Service Award is named after Helen Poore who was an outstanding transit manager of Charlottesville Transit from 1973-2003. She achieved national recognition as the first female transit manager, and she was a founding member of VTA. VTA presents this award annually to transit professionals who, over the course of their career, have made outstanding contributions to public transportation in their locality and in Virginia.
Mr. Pollock was first hired as Transit Director for Bay Transit in 2000 and continued in this capacity until 2008. During this period, Pollock grew the transit system from a three-county service area to its current size of twelve counties, serving a 3,000 square mile area larger than the state of Delaware. To support this expansion, Pollock partnered with all twelve county governments and the towns of West Point and Colonial Beach to avail public transportation services to transportation disadvantaged and elderly residents throughout the region. Under Pollock’s leadership, Bay Transit added seasonal trolleys in Colonial Beach, Kilmarnock/Irvington/White Stone, and Urbanna, as well as deviated fixed-route services in Gloucester, West Point, and Tappahannock.
In 2008, Ken was hired as a Rural Transit Program Administrator for the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) where he worked closely with many of the rural transit systems in the Commonwealth. In addition to managing DRPT’s Rural Transit Assistance Program, Pollock also oversaw the National Transit Database data collection and reporting to the Federal Transit Administration.
Pollock returned to Bay Transit as director in 2011. In 2013, he was appointed as Community Transportation Association of Virginia’s (CTAV) representative on the Transportation Service Delivery Advisory Committee (TSDAC) to advise the Commonwealth Transportation Board on the distribution of new state transit funding and served on the committee until 2018. Pollock is a past board member of CTAV and served as its President from 2004-2008. He also serves on the board of the Virginia Transit Association.
In 2015, Pollock managed the construction of a new administrative office and bus maintenance facility in Gloucester that was built to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. The LEED program provides a framework for healthy, highly efficient, and cost-saving green buildings, which offer environmental, social and governance benefits.
Beginning in 2019, Pollock coordinated strategic partnerships with several organizations across the Bay Transit service area. A total of sixteen Bay Transit bus shelters were installed across the region including at the Rappahannock Community College (RCC) campuses in Glenns and Warsaw, VCU Health Tappahannock Hospital, and income restricted apartment complexes in Gloucester, Essex, and Middlesex Counties. In 2020, Bay Transit and the RCC Educational Foundation began offering free rides to RCC students to and from any of the four RCC campuses in the region.
In June of 2021, Bay Transit launched the highly successful Bay Transit Express ride hailing service in the Gloucester Courthouse area. By April of 2022, ridership on Bay Transit Express was regularly eclipsing ridership on the remaining deviated fixed-route service in Gloucester. With the support of Gloucester County and Gloucester County Public Schools, the service was expanded to Gloucester Point in October of 2022. Today, more than 1,700 trips on the award-winning Bay Transit Express system are taken in Gloucester County each month and Pollock is in negotiations to eliminate the under-performing deviated fixed-route line in West Point and replace it with Bay Transit Express.
In 2021, Pollock partnered with the Rappahannock Art League (RAL) in Kilmarnock to launch the “Art in Transit” judged competition to raise awareness about, and financial support for, the two non-profit organizations. Bay Transit’s share of the proceeds from entry fees, artwork sales, commissions and sponsorships go toward a Rappahannock Community College scholarship fund for Bay Transit’s frontline employees, children, or even grandchildren; as well as its New Freedom Program, a low-cost transportation service for disabled and/or senior individuals who need to travel outside of Bay Transit’s normal service area or operating hours. In 2023, nearly $10,000 in sponsorships were raised, increasing the scholarship to $2,500, increasing underwriting of New Freedom trips, and placing a copy of the first-place finisher’s artwork on the side of a bus for the third year. Now in its fourth year, Art in Transit has expanded into a truly regional competition and is supported by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
When cutbacks in local matching funds forced Bay Transit to cut the service hours of the popular “Rivah Ride” deviated fixed-route service in Tappahannock in 2023, Pollock explored alternative funding opportunities and, later that year, executed the first ever sponsorship agreement for the Rivah Ride with VCU Health Tappahannock Hospital. In March, with VCU Health branding on the Rivah Ride bus and six of the Bay Transit bus shelters in the area, the Rivah Ride’s service hours were restored. Pollock is now focusing on securing additional private funding from VCU Health for New Freedom trips for area residents who need to travel to and from the Massey Cancer Center in Richmond.
As Pollock prepares to retire in February of 2025, he remains forward looking and has partnered with DRPT and WSP to pilot a Zero Emissions Bus Transition Study that examines the unique challenges of transitioning to battery electric and/or hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles for a rural transit system with such a large service area. With nearly twenty-five years of devoted service, Ken’s leadership has transformed Bay Transit into an innovative and award-winning transit system. “Obviously, I am honored to receive the VTA’s distinguished service award,” Pollock stated. “It is a reflection on our entire organization, and I thank my colleagues at Bay Transit for their critical roles in making my career so fulfilling.”
Dina Cunningham is among inaugural class of graduating Leadership Institute Fellows
Bay Transit Operations Specialist Dina Cunningham was also recognized during the VTA awards luncheon, joining fourteen other transit professionals from across the state who graduated from the VTA’s Leadership Institute. The Leadership Institute was created to help cultivate and elevate future leaders within the transit industry. The fellows spent the last year learning about nearly every aspect of public transportation from a cadre of experts. Ms. Cunningham and the other fellows attended six days of training at sessions held at six different transit systems across Virginia. While there, the fellows learned from 37 subject matter experts who covered 32 topics critical to transit. “It was challenging and rewarding,” Cunningham noted. “I really bonded with the other fourteen fellows and feel like I have friends and resources throughout the state now. Like so many professions today, new technologies are bringing about rapid changes to the ever-evolving transit industry. I’m extremely proud to be among the inaugural class of graduates from the Virginia Transit Leadership Institute.”
For more information about Bay Transit, please visit the Bay Transit website at www.BayTransit.org. To learn more about Bay Aging, please visit the website at www.BayAging.org.
