Berkshire Planning Commission Not in Favor of Bus Route Changes
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Berkshire Regional Planning Commission wants to ensure that the regional transit authority's proposed service changes do not impact the environmental justice population and continue to connect residents to essential locations.
On Thursday, the executive committee approved a comment letter to Berkshire Regional Transit Authority that advised overall guidelines and specific responses to proposed route changes.
The proposed fiscal year 2023 service changes — effective in July — apply to Routes 1-5, 11, 12, 14-16, 21, 21x, 22, and 34. They include timetable and bus schedule adjustments, route travel pattern adjustments, bus stop location or name changes, limited additions, limited reductions, and discontinued service.
During a meeting with the planners, the transit authority identified low ridership and efficiency as reoccurring reasons for specific service changes.
In the comment letter, BRPC asserted that adjustments should not be strictly based on low ridership on a route and that there are different reasons for low ridership including infrequent service, not connecting with other routes and long travel time.
BRPC staff met virtually with BRTA staff on Feb. 28 to discuss the proposed changes and also attended a virtual public hearing on March 18.
"BRTA should assess the cause(s) for low ridership before cutting the service or reducing the frequency from an hourly service to every two hours — especially the connections from the essential services," BRPC wrote.
"Reducing and discontinuing services will adversely impact the population whose mobility is dependent on this public transportation."
The planners also recommended that existing fixed route bus connects and services should not be reduced or eliminated just to improve efficiency and instead, BRTA should adjust the timetable to include the required time to make the route efficient.
The discussion also came with harsh criticism from Sheffield alternate Rene Wood, who is dissatisfied with the proposed service change process. Wood is also a member of the BRTA advisory board.
"I feel very bad about this entire process," ahe said. "I continue to be disappointed as to how BRPC, which has such an excellent transportation group, is continually excluded from BRTA's discussions so I find BRTA in my opinion to be extremely disappointing on how they do things and how they suggest route changes."
Williamstown alternate Roger Bolton added that the transit authority's responses to a report done by Anuja Koirala, BRPC's lead staff person for transportation planning projects, were sometimes absent and unsatisfying.
"I guess I just think that from what I can see on the surface, I would share the dissatisfaction," Bolton said.
"We sound like a broken record but this is just such an important issue for us as it is for all rural areas like us, it's really essential, it's essential if we want to have a strategy, for example, where one town takes the lead on certain kinds of public services, maybe libraries for example, and then another town takes the lead on some other kinds of public services, we need something to have the citizens of the county get from town to town, that's that's the only way that really, we can finance certain kinds of things at a superior level."
Wood added that BRTA's survey on the proposed changes was one of the worst she has ever seen, explaining that it was buried on the website and the related meetings were not very accessible.
"This whole timeframe is very concerning," she added
"And I'm concerned that we start routes and then we stop routes and we start loops and we stop loops, so there's no real justification as to why that's happening and once you get a rider you've got to keep a rider and you start screwing around with the routes, people who started will drop off and it's very hard to get them back."
When Wood was asked if she believes the BRTA advisory board holds any weight in regards to decisions being made, she expressed a belief that "things are stacked in advance" and used the tight deadline of July as an example.
She also suggested that BRPC continues the conversation on a micro-transit pilot program that is being proposed. A micro-transit program operates with smaller vehicles between specific origins and destinations booked by a customer.
In the comment letter, the planners said the pilot program is a good start but is not a true on-demand micro-transit because rides would have to be booked two days in advance and riders would have to be registered with BRTA.
Berkshire Regional Planning Board Comments on BTRA Changes by iBerkshires.com on Scribd
Tags: BRPC, BRTA, public transportation,
