TACT to post new bus schedules on route adjustments
New bus schedules will be posted at Town and Country Transit's Kittanning terminal and be available for riders by March 30.
Gerry Miller, operations manager, hopes the updated information will help current and potential riders understand the route adjustments that were approved Wednesday by the transit authority's board.
"It's going to be easy for anybody to understand," Miller said. "Hopefully we can get positive comments, or any comments, so we can tweak them in July."
The route adjustments are the first step for Town and Country to get rid of its debt by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. The transit authority has been under scrutiny by state and local officials in recent months after it was revealed that the agency is hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Miller and Patti Lynn Baker, manager of finance, are running Town and Country for now. The former general manager, Michael Johnston, retired in February.
Consultants from Clear View Strategies in Pittsburgh have been on-site for the past few weeks analyzing Town and Country's operations. They discussed several recommendations, including the route adjustments, that the board is expected to vote on at its meeting Wednesday.
The consultants, who are paid for by PennDOT, estimated Town and Country's debt at $191,000, not including loan payments and a mortgage.
The route adjustments will ensure that buses arrive at the Kittanning terminal on a consistent and uniform time schedule, Miller said. Because of rider complaints, Miller ironed out the new routes and rode with a bus driver to make sure they could be safely traveled before the consultants began working, he said.
The new schedule will reduce the number of buses throughout most of the day, he said.
• Route 3, known as Lemon Way, will stay almost the same, except for departure times, Miller said. A bus on the route will leave the Kittanning terminal at the top of every hour, beginning at 7 a.m. with the last trip departing at 9 p.m.
• Route 2, which serves Applewold, West Kittanning, Hilltop Plaza, Franklin Village Mall and ACMH Hospital will offer additional service, Miller said.
A bus on the route will leave the Kittanning terminal hourly on every half hour, beginning at 5:30 a.m. The same schedule will continue throughout the day, with the last bus departing at 9:30 p.m.
Additional buses will run the route during "peak hours," Miller said -- at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m., in addition to the buses running hourly on the half hour.
A final bus will run the route at 11 p.m.
"That makes it available for somebody who needs to take a bus home" after working a 2:30 to 11 p.m. shift at the hospital, Miller said.
• Routes 1 and 4, serving Ford City, Ford Cliff, Kittanning and Manor Township will be combined and service will increase, he said. Additional stops at Lenape Technical School and Andy's IGA on Armstrong Avenue in Manor have been added.
"It appears to have been decreased, but in reality what we eliminated was a duplication of service," he said.
In some spots, buses on both routes stopped at the same places throughout the day, sometimes within minutes of each other, Miller said.
The addition of Lenape Technical will allow adults to attend the school's evening classes, he said, which was a suggestion made by a Town and Country employee.
Buses will leave the Kittanning terminal hourly at a quarter past the hour with the first bus leaving at 6:15 a.m., continuing through the day until the last one departs at 5:15 p.m. A final bus will leave the terminal at 10:15 p.m.
• The same Saturday routes will be provided by one vehicle, which is a 50 percent reduction.
For Route 1, serving Ford City and Manorville, buses will leave the terminal at 8 and 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m.
For Route 2, serving Applewold, West Kittanning, Hilltop, Franklin Village and the hospital, buses will leave the terminal at 9 and 11 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m.
For Route 3, Lemon Way, buses will leave the terminal at 8:35 and 10:35 a.m. and 2:35 p.m.
Miller said there have been suggestions for additional stops, but "this is where we're starting." Town and Country is open to comments on the new routes and suggestions for new stops.
During the board's special meeting Wednesday, the consultants said the new routes, plus one shared-ride trip consolidation, could result in a savings of $18,000. Two shared-ride routes to Rural Valley and Dayton senior centers will be reduced to one trip.
The routes should give current and potential riders a bit of reassurance of a uniform departure time, said Laurie Andrews, president of Clear View Strategies. Also, it will put Town and Country a step closer to making up its debt by June 30.
"We can definitely make up that difference, that's not an insurmountable amount of money," Andrews said at Wednesday's meeting. "It was better news than we expected."
