Rochester Public Transit seeks input on transit improvement ideas – Post Bulletin

ROCHESTER — Rochester Public Transit is seeking input on a draft set of ideas to improve public transit in Rochester.

The public comment period on the ideas will extend until the end of May, and feedback will be sought in a variety of ways:

• Surveys are available on board all RPT buses and online.
• Virtual open houses being held online at noon and 6 p.m. May 5.
• An in-person open house is set for 4-7 p.m. May 12 at Chateau Theater.

The service ideas are a product of a first round of public input held last fall. Among the more significant changes being considered are:

• A plan to replace Routes 21-26, which currently run in the evening and on weekends and holidays, with six routes that currently only operate weekdays until about 8 p.m. This would create subset of routes that are always running when RPT is in service.
• Two new east-west crosstown routes, one on the north side of Rochester and one on the south. Similar to the previous Crosstown (Route 191), these routes would not start or end in downtown.
• A proposal to connect two pairs of routes that run north-south connecting major destinations outside of downtown, such as Market Plaza and Apache Mall or North Broadway and South Broadway avenues. This would reduce the need for riders to transfer at the downtown transit center when traveling between these destinations.
• A proposal for increasing how frequently the bus runs on some routes based on ridership.

The project website at

www.rochestertdp.com

has complete details of proposed changes and ways to provide feedback, including access to the virtual open house events next week.