By Betsy Finklea
Latta Town Administrator Jarett Taylor recently discussed the importance of PDRTA (Pee Dee Regional Transportation Authority) bus service coming to Dillon County.
At a recent Dillon County Council meeting, Dillon County Administrator Tony Clyburn said that this transportation system would have stops throughout the county.
Taylor said there are many citizens in the Latta area interested in mass transportation who currently have to rely on relatives, friends, or neighbors to get where they need to go. An affordable PDRTA bus route will help make people more mobile. He said it will help give people morale when they can go to Wal-Mart or go to the grocery store on their own terms.
Taylor said that PDRTA will help during emergency situations such as hurricanes by providing an efficient means to get people to safety. He said he has been assured by PDRTA officials that they will have access to a bus to provide transportation in an emergency situation that may require an evacuation, etc.
Taylor said from a county standpoint having mass transportation through PDRTA will show industries that we are serious about economic development and about getting people to work.
Taylor said he was assisting one day in radiation/oncology when he met an older gentleman who had cancer.
The man told him it was hard to know that you are living with cancer, and it makes you think about what is important and not important in life. Taylor asked the man if there was anything that he wanted to do that he hadn’t done.
The man said he would like to see the ocean.
Taylor asked him where he was from. The man said, “Latta”.
Taylor said you would be surprised how many people right here haven’t seen the ocean.
PDRTA can take people to the ocean who have never had the opportunity before.
That’s the power of mass transportation and what PDRTA could do for people in Latta and this county.