streetdoc

There are several hurdles that you're not addressing. First, we're still stuck with local everything. A county wide FD, EMS, and PD would be great but for the purposes of this thread they are not a reality at this time. Croton, Peekskill and everyone else cannot fix this and for the immediate future have to find a way to work with the fragmented system.
Austin and Texas in general are growing. Relatively speaking a growing community is cheaper. More development and more people genertae more income to fund the new services they require. Most of the state taxes paid by residents of LI, NYC, and the Hudson Valley never come back. We're sustaining the dying decaying industrial cities of the rest of the state. Decaying communities become poor communities and require more resources than prosperous ones due to increases in crime, fires, and decreases in healthcare. An extreme example is Detroit.
We have massive infrastructure repairs that we're way behind on. Across the country politicians did little to prepare for the long term upkeep and upgrade of highways, rails, power distribution, water and sewage systems. These now urgent costs are most heavily centered on areas the grew the most in the 50's and 60's.
At a certain point population density tips the scale from being a cost benefit to being an expense. As the population begins to exceed the area's ability to supply it more expensive alternatives have to be found. These are not always offset by the added population. For example Los Angeles pays more than anyone else in the country for water. Pumping in more and more water just keeps adding to the price per gallon. Here transportation is a problem. Efficient mass transit cannot work on fares alone. We are pretty close to capacity for highway construction. We can expand here or there, but the days of constructing entirely new highways are probably over. That means more congested roads and more mass transit solutions. These both cost more money.
Cost of living is yet another hit to the taxpayer's wallet. As the community grows and sprawls from the urban centers people begin paying a premium for convenience. This drives up everyone's property values. So now your workers need to be paid more, your business need to charge a little more, and your services begin to cost more. This one is great because its self perpetuating.
If you stick it out a few decades you'll see Austin become just as dysfunctional and messed up as dear old Westchester. Hell, you guys already had a waste and corruption scandal in your transit system. Its only a matter of time.

There is no staffed 36M2.. there is another Fly Car that OVAC owns and is lettered 36M2. 36M1 and 36M2 vehicles are rotated as 36M1 to prevent wear and tear on any one vehicle, and may be staffed during inclement weather, but it is not a regularly staffed unit.

Ossining VAC is an ALS level agency providing EMS to the Ossining School District which encompasses the Town and Village of Ossining, as well as parts of New Castle. They are also responsible for the 36-Medic-1 system which provides ALS response to Croton and Briarcliff, and serves as a back-up for OVAC.
#1 - OVAC staffs the 36M1 Fly Car, (1) ALS level ambulance 24/7, and when manpower and staffing permits (1) BLS level ambulance
#2 - Last year OVAC responded to roughly 2200 calls, and the 36M1 Fly Car was right around 1,000 calls for service
#3 - The number of volunteers has dwindled in recent years, but there is still a small core group of dedicated volunteers. Years ago there were several active volunter Paramedics, but now there are no active volunteer Paramedics. The majority of the time, there are not enough volunteers to staff an ambulance on a regular basis, but there are some night crews comprised of dependanble volunteers who show up weekly for their steady shifts
#4 - 36M1 is a solo-paramedic Fly Car, with one paramedic working per tour
#5 - Not quite sure what you mean?
#6 - I believe the ambulances are PL Customs
#7 - The current building can house 3 ambulances and 2 fly cars in the garage. There is a male bunk room, female bunk room each with 3 beds, and a seperate room for the Fly Car medic.

I think the concept of all ALS ambulances across the board in Westchester County is an excellent one, but...
When we look at systems like Port Chester, Yonkers, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, White Plains, Ossining, and Harrison... we are talking about systems who have call volumes that are in the thousands. The call volumes are there to support the concept of staying away from the Fly Car methodology of delivering Advanced Life Support and instead utilize dedicated ALS ambulances staffed with Paramedics. The majority of these busier systems utilize the Fly Car methodology for field supervisors who are available to stop the clock should the systems units be tied up on active calls. Smaller systems like Croton, who are responding to 700 calls for service (roughly 2 calls per day), and out of those 700 annual calls, 200 actually require ALS level interventions, it may be more financially feasible to utilize the concept of a regional approach to ALS coverage through the use of Fly Cars, rather then a staffed ALS ambulance. When more then half of your annual call volume are BLS level calls, is it feasible to tie up a Paramedic for an hour for a BLS level call, rather then having your medic go back into service when not needed for a BLS level call and remain available for the next job where ALS level interventions may desperately be needed?
The other issue at hand is although it may seem like there is an abundance of actively employed Paramedics in Westchester County because of all the systems prevalent, when you really think about it, the number of medics currently working in Westchester is not as great as it seems. This is because if there are 20 ALS agencies in Westchester (a ficticious number), you have the same 8 Paramedics going from Agency "A", to Agency "B", to Agency "C". The point I'm getting at is that the same 100 or so (once again, a ficticous number since I don't have the time to go to the WREMSCO website and count all the MAC'ed Paramedics) Paramedics REMAC'ed and working in Westchester County are all working for multiple agencies. To add another ALS system where you have to tap into the already overworked pool of Paramedics is going to lead to more difficulty covering shifts and the ever so prevalent threat of Paramedics who are working 16, 24, 32, even 48 hours straight going from one agency to the next.
If smaller systems like Croton, and I keep mentioning Croton only because they are the agency being discussed in this thread since there are numerous smaller systems here in Westchester County, were to look at the idea of having a 24/7 staffed ALS ambulance, I think it would be more feasible to take on a regional approach with the surrounding communities of Cortlandt, Ossining/New Castle, Yorktown to establish a system with fully staffed ALS ambulances (note I said ambulanceS, plural), where response times can meet the national standards and taxpayers can get the service they expect and deserve. Of course, and no surprise to anyone here since it's been pointed out numerous times, this concept will depend on surrounding agencies to pool resources, work together, and get past the boundaries of the "my town" syndrome that has crippled the Westchester "EMS system" (if we can even call it that).