At public forum, residents weigh in on possible Metro route changes

Around 30 people attended a public hearing the evening of Wednesday, April 10 to weigh in on possible changes to Madison bus routes.

April 10, Public forum on Metro serviceThe City of Madison Transit and Parking Commission listened to the comments and concerns of about 20 Madison residents. Most attendees focused on the proposed changes to bus routes 14 and 15 at Sheboygan Avenue on the west side, but others had suggestions for routes 9, 10 and 18, among others.

In the end, “30 percent will like [what’s changed]; 30 percent will hate it; 30 percent won’t care; 10 percent won’t realize there was a change,” said Transit Schedule Planner Colin Conn. “That’s just standard.”

Conn expressed surprise at the opposition to removing route 14 from Sheboygan Ave. The change is meant to save commuters time by making the route more direct between the East Transfer Point and the west side. Routes 9 and 10 would then take over Sheboygan Ave.

Several attendees were concerned that the replacement routes wouldn’t go late enough in the day to satisfy Sheboygan residents’ transportation needs, but Conn said he is still figuring out the schedules.

Service adjustments were proposed for routes: 2, 5, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 25, 28, 31, 33, 34, 38, 39, 40, 56, 57, 71 and 72.

Selena Pettigrew, president of Allied Dunn’s Marsh Neighborhood Association, said she was against the proposed change to route 18. Instead of driving through the neighborhood, the proposal would have the bus follow Allied Drive to cut down on commute time. Pettigrew said this change could remove some residents’ access to bus transportation.

According to Conn, these residents would still be able to take routes 19 and 59, which will continue to drive through the neighborhood on Red Arrow Trail and Crescent Road.

The issue of overcrowded buses also arose at the meeting. When an attendee emphasized this problem becomes particularly bad on weekends on route 2, Alder Bridget Maniaci noted the difficulty in choosing what issues to focus on.

“The frustrating thing of sitting on this committee for a long time is realizing … that we really hit the ceiling on our capacity on metro,” she said. “We don’t have the resources to do everything we want or even need to do. And so we have to choose between things that we don’t want to have to choose between, because we simply do not have the resources.”

The commission will have plenty of time to think about their options and make a decision before the proposals come to a vote. According to Gary Poulson, chair of the Transit and Parking Commission, the vote will probably take place on May 8.

In the meantime, Maniaci said she thought the changes were almost ready, but that they might need a little tweaking.

Conn was also optimistic about the outcome of the meeting.

“I think it went extremely well,” he said. “There’s nothing that was presented that we can’t deal with. [It] might require some changes of thinking on our part, but I think it went swimmingly well.”

The city will continue to accept comments at mymetrobus.com/feedback and through email to mymetrobus@cityofmadison.com.