Speed still a roadblock for T

5-year-old city bus system considers changes to cut wait times

Since the Lawrence Transit System began operations – five years ago today – it has grown up.

The number of riders has grown from 200,000 in its first full year to a projected 400,000 this year. Each year the system has seen double-digit growth and has won a federal award for the pace at which it is adding riders.

But it hasn’t sped up. Wait times and how long it takes to get from one location to another continue to be the biggest hurdle in adding riders, transit officials said.

“It is just so time-consuming. That is basically the main thing with the bus,” said Lawrence resident Lindy Morgan, who was riding the T recently after her car broke down. “It is just so much quicker if you have a vehicle to drive yourself where you need to go.

“I can run errands in a vehicle that might take me two hours. But it might take me four or five hours to do it on the bus.”

Cliff Galante, the city’s public transit administrator, has heard it all before. He said his office had received many requests to increase the timeliness of the city’s buses. And he is taking some steps.

He’s studying the idea of changing the system from one in which riders can flag down a bus from basically any corner along the route to one that would require users to board at designated stops. Galante also said he hoped the city and the student-run KU on Wheels system could better coordinate their systems, which could make it easier and quicker for riders to get from one spot to another.

A party to mark the Lawrence Transit System's fifth anniversary attracted, from left, Karen Goff, Bobby Hapgood and Eric Smith. They sampled the chocolate fountain during the T party Thursday at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H.

Finding some way to speed the system likely will be a key to continuing the T’s strong growth rate, which is expected to be about 18 percent this year.

“We know we will get a captive audience for people who have mobility issues: seniors, people who no longer can drive, people without a car,” Galante said. “But the real challenge is how do you get people like me and you who have cars to make a conscious decision that they’re going to take the bus instead?

“The biggest way is to make it as convenient as possible, to make it as much like using their cars as possible.”

Taking the time

Meet Blue Collar Bob, the Journal-World’s fictitious bus rider. Bob’s station in life serves as a pretty good example of why some people who have cars think twice about incorporating the bus into their daily lives.

Let’s say Bob lives in North Lawrence and works at the East Hills Business Park along Kansas Highway 10 east of Lawrence. If Bob needs to get to work by 8 a.m., he needs to be at the bus stop at Second and Locust streets by at least 7:09 a.m. If he plans on walking to the bus stop from his home, he should plan on it taking about 2 minutes per block. The bus leaves at 7:10 a.m.

The bus arrives at 23rd and Harper streets at 7:56 a.m. where he needs to transfer to another bus that leaves at 7:56 a.m. As long as the transfer goes smoothly, Bob will arrive at Pearson Government Solutions in the East Hills Business Park at 8 a.m.

The total elapsed time on the bus is 50 minutes, plus the time it takes to walk from home to the bus stop. Via car on Thursday morning, it took 12 minutes to travel from Second and Locust streets to the East Hills Business Park.

Back in the real world, people have noticed the difference.

“I probably won’t use it again after my car gets fixed,” Morgan said of the bus. “I would much rather be driving.”

Bob’s example isn’t an isolated one. To get from the neighborhood surrounding the Holcom Park Recreation Center in southwest Lawrence to the industrial area near the Kmart Distribution Center in northern Lawrence, it takes an hour using the bus, including a 24-minute wait for a transfer in downtown Lawrence.

To get from the area surrounding Free State High School in west Lawrence to the Kansas Union, it takes an hour and eight minutes on the bus, including a 43-minute wait at Ninth and Massachusetts streets. People could cut down on the total time by walking the last portion of the route, or paying to take a KU on Wheels bus from downtown to the campus.

But there’s also some good values to be found in the city’s bus routes. For someone who lives near 19th Street and Haskell Avenue and works at the East Hills Business Park, the bus could be a heck of a deal. For example, the bus leaves the intersection at 7:12 a.m. and arrives at the business park at 7:20. That’s an elapsed time of 8 minutes, just a minute more than it takes in a car. The fare of 50 cents is likely less than a person would spend for gasoline.

And Galante said the T was well-equipped to take people on trips that are more recreational or leisurely in nature.

“Maybe they use their car during the week, but on weekends they decide they’re going to use the bus to do some shopping downtown,” Galante said.

Most of the city’s routes provide fairly quick access to downtown. For example, someone living in the area around the Prairie Park School in southeast Lawrence could catch the bus and be at Ninth and Massachusetts streets in 20 minutes, and not have to worry about finding a place to park.

More study

For Galante, the whole issue of getting people to places quicker becomes a balancing act between covering as much of the town as possible versus reducing wait times as much as possible.

He said if people truly wanted to cut down wait times, there were two ways to do it: Cut the number of routes and locations the system serves, or increase the number of buses.

Increasing buses comes down to money. Each new one costs about $200,000, and then there’s annual expenses of additional drivers, maintenance, fuel and other operating costs.

Currently six of the T’s eight routes run on a 40-minute cycle. The other two – Route 8 through Kansas University and Route 7 along south Iowa Street – are on 80-minute cycles. Galante said it would be nice to have all the routes on a 30-minute cycle.

But Galante said he didn’t know how much would have to be added to the department’s $2.8 million budget – $1.3 million of which comes from a federal grant – to get better travel times. He said he hoped his department and KU officials in the next year could jointly fund a study of how the T and KU on Wheels could better coordinate or possibly even merge. That study could provide ways and cost estimates on how the system’s timeliness could improve.

“We are never going to be as convenient as the automobile because we aren’t providing individualized service,” Galante said. “But the important thing I want to convey to people is that this is everyone’s transit system. They can decide how this system will look, how often it will run, where it will go.”

The other option to improve travel times is to reduce the total area the system serves. But Galante said he didn’t think that would be a good option because many people had grown to depend on the T.

Emily Krupa, a Lawrence resident who is unemployed and doesn’t have a car, appreciates that sentiment. She rides the bus two to three times per day, and without it she said she likely wouldn’t have much of a chance to be out in the community at all.

“I can get farther,” Krupa said. “If I wasn’t going to ride the bus, I probably wouldn’t go very far.”

– 6News reporter Laura McHugh contributed to this report.