POUGHKEEPSIE – Dutchess County’s top transportation official is listening and adjusting, almost eight months after the county took over Poughkeepsie’s buses and bus routes.
One thing that has not happened is getting the city’s six former buses back on the road.
County Public Transportation Administrator John Andoh told the common council during an hour-long presentation Tuesday night that a lot of details remain to be worked out before a lease agreement between the city and county can be finalized.
The lease will start when they get Federal Transportation Administration approval, Andoh said.
City Administrator Marc Nelson said that “is imminent.”
For now, Andoh said they are reviewing public input since the county takeover.
“Some of the things that we’ve heard from some of our public meetings is our maps and schedules are difficult to understand, they are hard to access and there is a desire for real time data,” Andoh said. “Our bus rides, our bus frequencies, the trip times are very long. Our transfers are difficult to understand. Our connectivity is not synchronized very well and we need to do better with customer service.”
Meanwhile, work continues on tweaking routes and times.
Fourth Ward Councilwoman Sarah Brannen had an observation on what appears to be happening.
“It looks like a good amount of the old routes have been restored and are somehow been incorporated into the new map,” Brannen said.
Andoh confirmed that.
“That was done by design because from hearing from the feedback from the community for the past six months, those are the destinations that your residents want to go to and I’m of the belief that if we’re going to design a transit system we design it for the people.”
Andoh said the big picture includes looking at which routes are getting riders and which are underutilized. A few bus runs at times have no riders.
