RabbitTransit says transit access is vital to rural health care

At WellSpan Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg, RabbitTransit made a simple case with big stakes: for many rural patients, a bus ride can determine whether care happens on time or gets missed altogether.

The event, held Tuesday, May 12, 2026, centered on Stop Hopper and RabbitTransit’s shared-ride system, which are meant to help Union County residents get to work, school, medical appointments and other essential stops without a private car. RabbitTransit says more than 9,000 people use its service each day across Central Pennsylvania, a reminder that transit here is not just a convenience but a daily lifeline for riders spread across a region where clinics, pharmacies and hospitals are often too far to reach on foot.

Kristin Paradise, RabbitTransit’s community relations director, said people without transportation can become isolated and can miss appointments, dialysis trips or pharmacy visits, turning manageable problems into emergencies. Allen Fasnacht, vice president of WellSpan Health and president of Evangelical Community Hospital, said reliable transportation helps patients keep appointments, manage chronic conditions and get care before small issues become major ones. Shawn Ocker, a legally blind rider, described shared ride as a lifeline that keeps her connected to the community.

The service RabbitTransit highlighted is built for that kind of gap-filling. Stop Hopper costs $2 for most one-way trips and is free for riders 65 and older who have a registered Free Fare ID card. The service runs Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., vehicles are ADA-accessible, and riders paying cash must use exact change because drivers cannot make change. Riders can request trips by app and, where available, connect to fixed-route service. RabbitTransit also noted that its mix of fixed routes, larger buses, smaller vehicles and on-demand options is designed to cover trips that are hard to make in a rural county without a car.

The local significance was underscored by the hospital itself. WellSpan Evangelical Community Hospital is the only CMS 5-star rated hospital in the Central Susquehanna Valley. It has 131 licensed beds, employs about 1,900 people and has more than 170 physicians on staff, making transportation access around Lewisburg a practical issue for patients and for one of the region’s largest health-care institutions.

State Sen. Gene Yaw also attended, reflecting how transit funding has become a budget issue as well as a health issue. Pennsylvania officials have said rural shared-ride services provide 2.6 million trips a year for seniors, while the Shapiro administration says nearly one million Pennsylvanians ride public transit every day. In Union County, the message from Tuesday’s event was direct: when transportation falls short, health care does too.