By: NICOLAS FIERRO
Salina Post
Revised bus routes and stops for OCCK's fixed-route public bus system, "CityGo" was approved by the Salina Commission and will be implemented.
For about 20 years OCCK has been serving the community with CityGo and since then, has experienced a positive trend in ridership.
OCCK Director of Transportation, Trell Grinter presented to Salina Commissioners on Monday a revised bus route layout, along with new proposed bus stop locations. According to Grinter, this proposal was due to the increase of different movements of businesses and travel patterns.
"We absolutely recognized the need was to change our routes," said Grinter.
With this new plan, a majority of all bus stops will continue to be in operation. The revised routes presented were color-coded to distinguish each different travel pattern and connecting points.
Grinter stated a few current stops will no longer be in operation.
However, she said OCCK will do what they can to help residents get to their desired destination, in the event a stop is out of service.
Throughout the process of revising the bus routes and stops, OCCK reviewed the historical data of the amount of residents using each bus stop. According to Grinter, the stops that are going to be removed had less than 1 rider a day over the last 5 years.
She added the revised routes will benefit people when it comes to travel time.
"There are some stops since the maps have come through, that people will really benefit if a bus was in the area or closer, so they did not have to travel as far," she said. "The efficiencies and effectiveness that we are going to be reaching by changing these routes, is going to allow us to expand without undue hardship on the city and taxpayers as we go forward."
OCCK communicated and received feedback from the public before moving forward with the revision.
Grinter said OCCK plans to keep staying in communication with the public, about any comments on the revised bus stops and routes.