The Central Arkansas Transit Authority will hold four public hearings next month to, among other things, solicit ridership reaction to proposed changes to six bus routes.
The tentative changes include making the detour around the Interstate 430/ Interstate 630 interchange construction on the West Markham Street route a permanent alignment and adding another bus to the Saturday service for the Mabelvale/Midtown route and eliminating a bus on theroute on Sundays.
Agency officials also want to eliminate a portion of the Pinnacle Mountain Express route on Arkansas 300 between Arkansas 10 and Roland and change the route of its Hensley Express to use Interstate 30 rather than Main Street.
The Mabelvale/Downtown, Mabelvale/Midtown and Baseline/Southwest routes would be changed to serve the Wal-Mart store on Baseline Road by using the outer parking lot throughway rather than the store entrance as a stop.
The proposed changes are the product of the agency’s annual service modification review and are expected to be in place by August, agency officials said. They also come at the same time the agency is pursuing other passenger amenities such as more shelters at stops and the installation of a real-time passenger information system.
The first of the four public hearings will be held May 5 at the Main Library of the Central Arkansas Library System at 100 Rock St. in Little Rock. The dates and locations of the others are:
May 7 at the John Gould Fletcher Library at 823 N. Buchanan St. in Little Rock.
May 8 at the Oley E. Rooker Library at 11 Otter Creek Court in Little Rock.
May 12 at the Main Library of the William F. Laman Library System at 2801 Orange St. in North Little Rock.
The four hearings will begin at 7 p.m.
The proposed route changes were unveiled Tuesday at the monthly meeting of the CATA board.
Jarod Varner, the agency’s executive director, said the proposals weren’t firm and instead called them “ideas.”
“This is what we anticipate providing to the public, get their feedback and then next month we bring you back the implementable solutions,” Varner told the board. “Some of them may not be. There are some cost implications with some of these. They may not be attainable.
“We only have the half of the puzzle right now. We have, from a statistical standpoint, what makes the most sense. But we need to hear from the public.”
The proposed changes are based on route performance, public comments and requests, staff comments, development patterns and direct observation, said Matthew Long, the transit planner for CATA.
The route modification seeks to “identify areas with weak performance, opportunities to increase ridership and improve service performance and areas with potential operational safety risks.”
At the same time, he said, the process had constraints that included a requirement to remain revenue neutral because the agency doesn’t have the money to expand service. The process also had to minimize costs in staff time and resources, such as “design, printing, and general document updating of service changes.”
The changes also had to take into account the conditions of sidewalks, streets and traffic.
“How difficult it is to cross the street, is there a crosswalk, is there an intersection, the speed of traffic,” Long said. “We’re not trying to change the whole system like we did in February of 2013.”
Looking at the effectiveness of routes produced the recommendations to tweak Saturday and Sunday service on the Mabelvale/Midtown route, which Long said had almost twice the number of passengers on Saturday than on Sunday yet had only one bus on Saturday, with two buses plying the route on Sunday.
It’s the same with the Pinnacle Mountain Express route, which experienced a large drop-off in use once it got on Arkansas 300. Also, that highway is narrow, winding and lacks shoulders, making it a safety risk, Long said. The agency also proposes eliminating the 6:15 p.m. outbound trip.
Safety and time were factors in changing the service at the Wal-Mart on Baseline Road, he said. Buses servicing that stop encounter too much pedestrian and vehicle traffic at the store entrance, which not only presented a safety risk but also caused route delays that could ripple out throughout the day, Long said.
Board member Sara Lenehan, the Little Rock finance director, said the proposed changes could leave the agency open to criticism of favoring west Little Rock because patrons of the Wal-Mart on Bowman Road will continue to see buses go by the store’s front. But Long said traffic and the lack of infrastructure on Bowman Road or Chenal Parkway that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act leave the agency no other options at that location.
The detour on the West Markham Street route has been in place so long that under federal regulations it no longer is a detour but the actual alignment of the route, Long said. The service on that route also will be extended to include an inbound evening trip from Wal-Mart on Bowman at 8:05 p.m., he said.
The most dramatic tweak in terms of money is the changes to the Pinnacle Mountain Express. Eliminating the Arkansas 300 portion of the route will cut more than 500 miles per week in Pulaski County and will decrease the county’s share of contributions to CATA by $123,000 annually, Long said.
Little Rock, North Little Rock, Maumelle and Sherwood, the other partners that make contributions to the CATA budget, will see their costs rise to offset the decrease in Pulaski County’s contributions. Little Rock will shoulder the majority of the increase - about $96,000 - because it has the most ridership.
Long said the agency will realize some savings in fuel and labor but said most of its costs are fixed, so the agency can’t decrease the budget by that amount.
Correction: Articles Wednesday and Monday gave the wrong time for public hearings by the Central Arkansas Transit Authority to discuss proposed route changes, a passenger conduct code and other issues. The hearings start at 6 p.m. and will be held:
• May 5, Main Library of the Central Arkansas Library System, 100 Rock St., Little Rock.
• May 7, John Gould Fletcher Library, 823 N. Buchanan St., Little Rock.
• May 8, Oley E. Rooker Library, 11 Otter Creek Court, Little Rock.
• May 12, Main Library of the William F. Laman Library System, 2801 Orange St., North Little Rock.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/16/2014