Goldsboro/Wayne Transportation Authority

In 1995 The Wayne Interagency Transportation Inc. (WAIT) Board of Directors, which was being operated by a private contractor, decided to hire its own Director; Raymond E. Smith Jr. to oversee the Human Service Paratransit Service which provided van service to Dr’s appointments, shopping, employment, and general transportation for the Elderly, Indigent, and Disabled population in the Goldsboro and Wayne County Community. The system was comprised of Human Service Agencies to include Wayne Action Group for Economic Solvency (WAGES), Wayne County Sheltered Workshop, Wayne Services on Aging, Wayne County Mental Health, Wayne Opportunity Center, Wayne County Health Department, and Wayne County Department of Social Services (DSS). 

The need for the transition from private management to local management was due to the excessive costs associated with the private contractor. The hiring of Raymond E. Smith Jr. resulted in the lowering of agency rates and gaining control of administrative costs. As a result of Raymond’s efforts, the system started saving money. 

Because of his success with WAIT, Inc., Raymond was recruited by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) to become a statewide planner. As a statewide planner, Raymond was responsible for the development of similar transportation systems across the state of North Carolina to include Council of Governments region A in Western NC and the Cherokee Indian Reservation. 

While a transportation planner with NCDOT, Raymond became involved with the Transit Feasibility Study being conducted by RLS and Associates, that was commissioned by the City of Goldsboro (Richard Slozak, City Manager) and Wayne County (Will Sullivan, County Manager) which were in negotiations about starting a joint public transportation system. In these joint negotiations with the County of Wayne, the City of Goldsboro decided to apply for section 5307 urban transportation funds to go along with the section 5311 rural funds from the county and to form The Goldsboro Wayne Transportation Authority (Gateway). 

Upon the completion of the study, it was determined that it was an excellent opportunity for the City of Goldsboro and Wayne County to collaborate on a project to establish a first of its kind in the State of NC joint Rural/Urban public transportation system. At this point it was time to hire someone to bring this all together and build it from the ground up, since no similar model existed at the time.

The City of Goldsboro and Wayne County decided to hire Raymond E. Smith, Jr. as the first Executive Director of Goldsboro/Wayne Transportation Authority (Gateway), and that’s when the real work began. Because this was a first-of-its-kind endeavor, there were tremendous challenges that were not addressed in the feasibility study. The primary challenge was how to allocate costs between the four (4) different governmental entities responsible for funding this project. The four (4) entities were the Federal Transit Administration and the City of Goldsboro on the Urban side, and the N.C. Department of Transportation and Wayne County on the Rural side. This posed a particular challenge due to their not being a model to emulate. 

Raymond addressed the problem head on and developed a funding allocation formula that is still in use today. Upon working out all the details, and successfully getting all four entities to agree to work together, the system started operating its first service on Monday, October 16, 2000, with three buses on the urban side and the vans from the old WAIT System. 

The efforts of Raymond E. Smith Jr., Darryl A. Pitt Sr., and the Goldsboro/Wayne Transportation Authority have risen to the occasion and continues to be a significant Economic Development tool in the community’s arsenal to meet needs of people in the City of Goldsboro and Wayne County.