Every year Madison Metro makes “improvements” to their services. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder . . . here’s the latest round.
This is from Susan DeVos of Madison Area Bus Advocates who can summarize the changes better than I:
Every year now, Metro is ‘revising’ its service, often to the detriment of bus riders or would-be riders. Sometimes, proposed changes are actual improvements. Not only is it proposing changes to Routes 6, 11, 23, 25, 26 ,29, 32, 34, and 39 (eliminating 34 & 39 entirely) but it proposes to eliminate the bus stops on E. Wash. at Dickenson and some of eventually ALL middle school runs.
The following is an overview:
Overview:
Route 6: Schedule adjustments.
Route 11: Service shift from Science Dr., State St., and the Capitol Square.
Route 23: New service to Sun Prairie.
Route 25: Restructure of limited stop zone.
Route 26: Map/schedule adjustments.
Route 29: Service shift from Northport Dr., Packers Ave., Lower State St., and Lake St.
Restructure of limited stop zone.
Routes 31, 34, 39: Elimination of Routes 34 & 39, and restructure of Route 31 to provide all day
service to the Owl Creek Neighborhood, Dutch Mill Park & Ride and the new Pinney Branch Library.
Route 84: Route operates every 25 minutes resulting in one additional trip.
Bus Stop Changes: East Washington/Dickinson.
Supplemental School Service: Two middle schools (Cherokee and Jefferson) transition to yellow
bus service at the start of the 2019–20 school year.
Attached is the packet further describing these changes. That packet was downloaded from https://www.cityofmadison.com/metro/documents/packet-publichearing-augustservicechanges.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3s4mgd45W6bx4Z2b9_vEbIFJW0T1aKgpPfaPkU36QSSXfNnMKmOex8Gcw
If you have an issue with any of these proposals, you can show up and testify at the public hearing on Wednesday, April 24, 6 p.m. Madison Municipal Building 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. — Room 206 (preferred) or send snail mail or email to Metro Transit Public Hearing Feedback, 1245 E. Washington Ave., Suite 201, Madison WI 53703 or mymetrobus@cityofmadison.com. Testimony is captured on live stream and cannot honestly be denied whereas snail mail or email can be ‘mishandled.’ Judging from my own experience on an oversight committee, the latter is often what happens for one or another reason. But sometimes, that does not happen. Metro often tries to summarize feedback in terms of ‘approve,’ ‘disapprove’ or ‘neutral.’
As the #11 is the bus that I use almost every weekday when the weather permits me to get around outside in my motorized wheelchair (bus stop accessibility is not just an abstraction for me), I intend to testify about it. The proposal is for the #11 to bypass the Square. I wonder about the usefulness of city/county employees having an unlimited ride bus pass when it seems that Metro continues to push for its buses to bypass the Square. Yes, doing so saves time. Having empty buses saves time too. The goal should be service though, not empty buses.
If you use any of the routes or bus stops affected by proposed changes, consider testifying or at least sending feedback. It is not clear to me that Metro wanted to even give people the opportunity to provide feedback as it was first going to simply present the changes to the Transportation Commission. That was later changed to request a Public Hearing on the issue. It is possible that someone noted that Metro was required to hold a public hearing to fulfill a legal requirement, not because it really wants feedback. All the more reason for you to show up.
Photo By Packerfan386 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35188035
