Some question MTD's route changes at hearing
CHAMPAIGN — Jason Benda of Champaign is concerned about the loss of bus service to Parkland College on Saturdays.
Olivia Brown of Urbana says she doesn't like the idea of having to transfer between buses to visit stores on North Prospect Avenue in Champaign.
Benda and Brown were among about 30 people who turned out for a public hearing Wednesday at Illinois Terminal on proposed route and schedule changes for the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District.
MTD Managing Director Bill Volk said the purpose of the meeting was to give area residents an opportunity to give input on the planned changes to four routes, which are scheduled to go into effect on Aug. 14.
Benda, who teaches at Parkland College, said he has concerns about replacing the former Southwest Direct route with the new Lime route because the change eliminates Saturday bus service to Parkland College.
"The Southwest Direct was the only Saturday service to Parkland," Benda said. "I know there are Saturday courses at Parkland, and I'm concerned about anything that is going to eliminate service to the place where I work."
MTD Director of Operations Robb Patton said demand for Saturday bus service to Parkland has been limited. For example, Patton said, only one person took an MTD bus to Parkland this past Saturday.
"If the demand for service becomes overwhelming, we'll make changes," Patton said. "This is not fixed in cement by any means."
Patton added that the MTD has increased bus service to Parkland between 4 and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.
"That's where the activity really is," Patton said.
Brown, who lives at Steer Place in Urbana, said she and her friends frequently take the Red route bus to the stores on North Prospect.
Under the planned change, the Red route will only go as far as Market Place Mall. In order to reach North Prospect, Brown will have to transfer to the Yellow route bus at Illinois Terminal.
"Eighty percent of us at Steer Place ride the bus, and we prefer to take one bus to go to North Prospect," Brown said. "Some of us are on walkers or wheelchairs. Some of us have canes or crutches. We know it is a 45-minute ride, but we don't care. Keep it the way it is so we can go from Point A to Point B."
MTD Marketing Director Jan Kijowski said the change was made to allow the Yellow route to follow the same schedule all week long.
"The notion of transferring can be a little intimidating at first, but once you get in the habit of it, it's a simple thing to do." she said.
"We are trying to standardize service to North Prospect with the Yellow route," Volk said. "The Yellow route currently serves Market Place and North Prospect in the evenings and on weekends, but not during the day. We're trying to make service to Market Place and North Prospect the same all day long."
Annie Young of Champaign, who works at a business on North Prospect, said she came to the hearing because she had heard that bus service to the area was being eliminated.
"That scared me, but I was misinformed," Young said. "I am relieved that's not the case."
MTD Planner Drew Bargmann said the number of buses serving North Prospect will not change. The only change is that those buses will be from the Yellow route rather than from the Red route.
The proposed route changes can be seen at http://www.cumtd.com
In the article, it mentions that Mr. Benda is an instructor. Last week was Finals week for Parkland, so many instructors were still in the process of grading these Finals.
Regardless of the particular Saturday, these are changes that affect EVERY Saturday. With many summer classes scheduled to begin soon, this could be deterimental to students who take weekend classes. My brother-in-law often has weekend classes and he was planning to take the bus to Parkland this summer and fall due to rising gas prices and car problems.
Why can't they just extend this new route to Parkland? I think eliminating Saturday service to a major community college is a bit ridiculous. Also, I like the idea of making the daytime yellow consistent with the night and weekend, but I know a lot of people take the red from Urbana to North Prospect...I would imagine it'll be a major pain for them to have to transfer buses with grocery bags, especially since many of these riders are elderly.
Finally, I've already suggested to MTD that the weekend yellow route should be more frequent, or should use the longer buses because during the school year, buses on that route are ALWAYS crowded. It gets to the point where drivers have turned passengers away because the bus is too full...so they have to wait half an hour for the next bus, and even then, there's no guarantee that there will be room on that bus either. Was there any mention of this issue?
Comments
News-Gazette.com embraces discussion of both community and world issues. We welcome you to contribute your ideas, opinions and comments, but we ask that you avoid personal attacks, vulgarity and hate speech. We reserve the right to remove any comment at our discretion, and we will block repeat offenders' accounts. To post comments, you must first be a registered user, and your username will appear with any comment you post. Happy posting.