The late Tim McQueary, a former Sweet Home mayor and longtime community activist, has been honored with the 2022 Oregon Transit Association Local Distinguished Service Award.
Ken Bronson, recently retired Linn County special/rural transportation coordinator, presented the award to McQueary’s widow Jo Ann McQueary last week at the transit station at the Sweet Home Senior Center.
Among many other community activities, Tim McQueary, who died in Feb. 17, 2021, chaired the Linn County Transportation Advisory Committee, providing “critical leadership” in implementing the Linn County Human Services-Public Transportation Coordinated Plan (and subsequent plan updates), Bronson said in nominating McQueary for the award.
McQueary’s vision, he said, was “an improved and more coordinated and integrated transportation program (that) will provide most Linn County seniors, persons with disabilities and low-income residents with safe, efficient, affordable and sustainable transportation options. Building on the foundation of existing local public transportation programs and volunteer-based programs, residents will have access to realistic and sustainable transportation options.”
“As a lifetime resident of rural Oregon Tim McQueary clearly understood the need to plan, coordinate, develop, fund and manage transportation services for rural Oregonians,” Bronson wrote in his nomination letter. “Residents for whom public transportation is often a matter of ‘need,’ rather than ‘choice,’ to access medical services, employment, school, shopping and other important services. And Tim was certainly committed to providing transportation services in a logical, coordinated and cost effective manner that is a ‘good value to taxpayers.’
“Living in a small city/rural area, Tim clearly understood the important role that public transportation plays in enabling students to attend community college and four-year universities. McQueary’s decades-long support, for example, of the Linn Shuttle and the Linn-Benton Loop opened college doors to countless rural residents and changed their lives forever. In the past several years the Linn Shuttle increased the number of daily stops at Linn-Benton Community College from six to 29; and the Linn-Benton Loop daily stops at LBCC and Oregon State University approximately doubled.
“With very important STIF funding opportunities Tim played a critical role in helping plan and develop increased public transportation services including: an increase of the Linn Shuttle’s weekday Sweet Home-Lebanon-Albany runs from seven to 12; the initiation of Saturday Linn Shuttle service; Lebanon’s new deviated fixed route service; an increase of weekday hours for the Lebanon Dial-A-Bus and the establishment of Saturday service (with connections to the Linn Shuttle); an expansion of Lebanon Dial-A-Bus service to adjacent communities; an approximate doubling of Linn-Benton Loop service; and more than a doubling of service of Albany Transit System service.
“In addition to his leadership in improving regional coordination and connections, including service provided by the Linn Shuttle and the Linn-Benton Loop, Tim was particularly committed to the support of volunteer-based programs including Volunteer Caregivers which provides unique rides to seniors that no other program can provide.
“Tim McQueary was always an exceptional advocate for transportation services provided to residents with intellectual/developmental disabilities. For many rural I/DD residents this included a unique transportation partnership between Linn County, the non-profit Senior Citizens of Sweet Home, the City of Lebanon, local I/DD residential programs and regional I/DD vocational/employment programs.”