September 25, 2014
ALBANY, N.Y. (September 25, 2014) The Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) today announced the winner of its “CDTA and Me” customer story contest. Andrew Soper, who rides CDTA’s Northway Xpress service daily to work, topped the public voting with his story of childbirth, an unexpected incident and how CDTA helped save the day!
Andrew’s story was chosen from thousands of entries submitted by Capital Region residents and earned the top prize of free rides for a year. His story centered on his ability to get home after his wife and unborn child were involved in a serious car accident. Thanks to CDTA’s Guaranteed Ride Home program, Andrew was able to be by his wife’s side when she needed him the most.
“When I got that call, it was surreal,” Soper said. “It’s that call no parent wants to get. I remember picking up the phone thinking, how am I going to get home? That’s when I remembered CDTA’s guaranteed ride home. I wanted to share how CDTA was there for me when I needed help the most.”
CDTA’s Guaranteed Ride Home program, which allows customers to get home when they have to work late or have an emergency, is available to any rider with a valid monthly Swiper card CDTA CEO Carm Basile said, “We are happy to honor Mr. Soper today. His story is a testament to the benefits of public transit and the Guaranteed Ride Home program. We are glad that Mr. Soper’s story resonated with so many people and that his story had a happy ending.”
Over the course of the summer, customers were invited to tell their CDTA story online, at Capital Region events and through social media channels. The finalists’ stories were voted on through September 6, 2014 to determine the top storyteller. Voters were asked to judge stories on compelling nature, originality and how it depicts the CDTA & Me theme.
Soper beat out three other finalists that represented a cross section of the Capital Region, its diverse set of riders and the growing customer base of public transit. Based on the final voting Colin Klepetar, a schoolteacher from Saratoga Springs earned the second place prize of a Google Nexus tablet, Albany’s Erin Sheehan earned a $100 gift certificate to Proctor’s Theatre and rounding out the top four Leif Zurmuhlen of Schenectady will take home an Itunes Gift Card, Google Chromecast and a 31-Day Rolling Swiper for his entry.
To read Andrew’s full story along with the other finalists’ CDTA stories head over to cdtaandme.com.
ABOUT CDTA: The Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) was created in 1970 by the New York State Legislature as a public benefit corporation to provide regional transportation services by rail, bus, water and air. CDTA provides local, express, commuter and bus rapid transit services throughout the Capital Region. CDTA owns and operates the Rensselaer Rail and Saratoga Springs Train Stations. 650 people work at CDTA to deliver a transit system that serves close to 60,000 customers each weekday.
