Published: November 28, 2009 11:25 pm      

CamTran looks to future

Everything from bus stop locations and route schedules to a future $15 million operations center are being reviewed as CamTran leaders look to improve efficiency and fill the buses.

Recommendations from two Harrisburg-area consultants were reviewed at this month’s Cambria County Transit Authority meeting, but nothing will be rushed into service anytime soon, Director Rose Lucey-Noll said.

Any route changes, for instance, will take six months to a year to implement, and public hearings are required.

A new operations center is in the Transit Service Plan and Facility Alternatives’ 10- to 20-year vision section.

“This isn’t going to happen because we got a report and next week it’s going to be on the street,” Lucey-Noll said.

Although CamTran’s urban bus division is holding its own in ridership, some routes are not performing up to standard, Owen O’Neil of Gannett Fleming Engineers and Architects of Camp Hill told the authority members.

His group recommends eliminating the Daisytown-East Conemaugh route, picking up some of those riders on the Ebensburg-Johnstown shuttle, and adding more buses on popular runs such as those serving Richland Town Centre.

The 13-page synopsis presented to authority members outlines specific recommendations for each of the urban division’s 21 routes and the rural division’s nine routes.

Ridership is key

“The whole idea is to improve efficiency and increase ridership,” O’Neil said. “You take resources off of poorly performing routes and put him on better performing routes.”

Several authority members asked if the recommendations would include cutting drivers’ jobs.

“The way we have the plan, it is a resource-neutral plan,” O’Neil said. “The total hours are the same. I wouldn’t think there would be loss of jobs.”

Several route cuts are suggested in the rural division – CamTran-Plus – which serves Ebensburg, Cresson, Patton, Portage and other areas, including shuttles to Altoona shopping centers.

Many of those riders are senior citizens who have access to CamTran’s shared ride door-to-door service funded through state lottery funds, Lucey-Noll said.

Authority member Michael Noel stressed that, efficiencies aside, the number of drivers directly affects the number of riders.

“If you mess with the time plans on certain routes, you are going to decrease ridership,” authority member Ernie Esposito said. “We don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot.”

Those producing the recommendations interviewed union bus drivers, CamTran operations staff, riders and nonriders to find the most efficient areas, Lucey-Noll said.

“This is all just recommendations,” she said.

“They look at alternatives. We have to lay down a schedule and hours and see how this all works. It is a long process.”

The next step is to form a committee of drivers and operations staff to review the recommendations and develop a schedule by actually driving routes to see if the timing works. Then it would come back to the authority board meeting to schedule public hearings before final passage.

Visions are even more remote for a new operations center to replace CamTran’s 110-year-old former trolley barns in Moxham.

Jim Brock, chief executive officer of Avant Infrastructure Management Consulting of Camp Hill, outlined three options, noting that the existing buildings are not easily modified and that the property is divided by Bond Street.

No cheap fixes

Razing the existing structure and rebuilding is the most expensive option, estimated at $21 million to $26 million, Brock said.

Renovating another building on suitable property could be accomplished for between $14 million and $17 million

Acquiring at least 4 acres of vacant land and building there could cost $14 million to $20 million.

The biggest problem will be finding an existing building or vacant land, Lucey-Noll said, explaining that the new operations center can’t be any farther from the downtown Transit Center than the current Moxham garage.

“We have been working with the redevelopment authority and the city,” she said. “If something came up where we would find something with an existing building, we could renovate for our purposes. We’d be open to that.”

Lucey-Noll does not favor razing the Moxham buildings.

“There was talk of taking down the buildings, but I couldn’t even think of that,” she said. “They are beautiful buildings. We have to find another use for it.”

She pointed to CamTran’s success in locating new owners for the former rural division garage in Patton. An ambulance service took over the facility in 2004 when CamTran moved into its current Ebensburg center. Since then, a private business acquired the garage.

“In Patton, we didn’t want to make it look like it was abandoned,” Lucey-Noll said.