Convened by Lara Celeste Mack Table D 6 pm
Attendees: Alexis Wu (JMU student), Km Sandum (community member), Tonya Osinkosky (RMH Community Health), Anne Lorimer (community member), Cannie Campbell (JMU – Uvi Health Center), Rebecca Field (JMU math professor), Andy Eblin (JMU student)
Background of our current system: Harrisonburg Public Transportation (HDPT)
- primarily serves JMU because that is where it gets most of it’s funding
- 27 buses – 22 serve JMU and 5 serve rest of community
- ridership is MUCH higher during school year (because of students)
Students feel HDPT could better serve JMU and other student populations
Community feels they really need more from the current bus system – more efficient routes, for example.
Takes 7 years and a large sum of money just to get one bus… so how do we better utilize the recourses we already have?
Two-fold effort:
1. make the HDPT more user-friendly to community bus commuters
2. work with HDPT to look at routes and change the current system to make more efficient
Needs within the community (and students):
- get to walmart and other shopping areas
- get to work places
- get to HOSPITALS (new RMH location AND Charlottesville)
* used to have CART system.
People don’t want to ride the bus if it doesn’t stop where they need to go
JMU faculty from the math dept and others are currently looking at feedback data from the community to see how we could change the routes to better serve harrisonburg
METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORG – sensitive to underserved populations. work on transportation issues for the city AND some parts of the county. revisit their plan every 5 years and that time to look over the draft is coming up soon!!!!
How make bus system more feasible? really need to look into outside funding (aka grants)
could work with downtown renaissance about working on a downtown route again?
Contact: Lara Mack bike.ped.challenge[at]gmail.com 703 554 4770
Community Group = “Transportation for the Public”
- meet about once a month at 3 pm on a Sunday (next meeting is Sunday, Oct 17th). LOCATION TBA!!!
- will be at the International Festival Saturday, Sept. 25th, noon to 6 pm.
- folks took the ‘petitions’ to take to different communities in Harrisonburg to get more feedback about where folks live and where they want to get to on buses.
