City officials hope that an expansion of Madison Metro service in Middleton will help meet growing demand.
Officials from the city and Madison Metro met with the public at a hearing at the Lakeview Community Park shelter Thursday to unveil proposed route and schedule changes for west side Metro routes serving the city. Middleton has been working with Metro for the past year to plan the changes, which are slated to take effect this fall.
Making improvements in Middleton is an important part of Metro's west side plans, said Metro general manager Catherine Debo.
"We have demand that we're not meeting," Middleton assistant city planner Mark Opitz said at the start of the meeting.
He explained that the goals of the proposed service changes are to improve connections for riders in and going to Middleton, to provide more frequent service during off-peak daytime hours and to better serve the Middleton Corporate Park and the Airport Road area.
To that end, two current routes serving the city, 60 and 61, would be replaced by three new routes, 70, 71 and 72. A fourth new route, 74, would be primarily an intra-city route. Another new route, 73, would provide a direct connection to the West Transfer Point. Riders could transfer from one route to another where routes intersect, Metro schedule planner Colin Conn said.
The plans do not include any additions to weekend service, although that is something city officials would like to see in the future, with a larger budget.
There is a Catch-22 when it comes to weekend schedules, said Middleton City Council President Jim Wexler. A lot of people would like to take the bus, but cannot because of insufficient schedules.
"If people could depend on that service it would make a big difference," he said.
For the past two years, Metro has been working on a route restructure proposal affecting primarily the west and south sides of Madison. Metro staff members have conducted several meetings to obtain passenger feedback and modify proposals in advance of a public hearing before the Madison Transit and Parking Commission on May 22. Service changes are planned for implementation in late August or early September, Debo said.
Middleton contracts with Metro for bus service, and an increase of $40,000 in the city's service budget this year is allowing for the expansion plans. "We saw this opportunity and wanted to try and expand the service as best we could," said Middleton City Administrator Mike Davis.
Conn spent much of the hearing addressing riders' questions about how their specific routes and schedules would change. As the hearing progressed it became clear the vagaries of the schedule would favor some riders and be a disservice to others.
Conn said he has analyzed thousands of trips utilizing GPS tracking in the buses to develop a reasonable schedule. "The problem with bus scheduling is if you don't give the bus enough time the problem multiplies. But if you give it too much time the bus driver corrects it at the time points and makes the riders upset."
Metro drivers try to meet "time points," that is, getting to a particular stop at an exact minute. If they are early they have to wait before going to the next stop, Debo explained.