Greenbelt residents push for more bus runs

Transportation consultant to make transit recommendations

Resident Jane Fines relies solely on public transportation and does not own a car. She is the director of undergraduate recruitment and special programs in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park and takes the university shuttle to work.

‘‘This is an issue dear to my heart since I rely on public transit,” Fines said. ‘‘On Sundays, I am essentially trapped.”

TheBus only operates Monday through Friday countywide, according to its schedule. The Metro bus schedule varies throughout the county; most routes operate every day but some only operate five or six days a week.

Inadequate transportation options are also of concern to Bowie residents. Bowie commissioned a transit study in 2006 by TranSystems Corporation where 32 percent of residents said they used public transportation, but 76 percent said they would use it if it were more convenient.

Greenbelt Mayor Pro Tem Rodney Roberts said people who use public transit the most are those who have the best ideas about how to change it. He said he hopes to see more resources for public transportation go to the city rather than the county, as the local governments can more easily pinpoint the needs of residents. State transportation money goes directly into the county budget.

In a city-commissioned study, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. gathered community feedback about Greenbelt public transportation routes in order to make recommendations on how to improve transit. The recommendations will be incorporated into a strategic transit plan for the city.

Massachusetts-based Vanasse, which studied the bus routes over the past two months, made a presentation on the city’s current 20 routes before dividing the roughly 60 participants into six groups. Participants discussed and recorded their biggest concerns about the transit system.

‘‘Community forums are a wonderful opportunity to hear from people who actually use the system,” said Kimberly Lieberman, a VHB senior transportation planner. ‘‘We want to find out if people are having issues accessing the transit system. Can they get where they need to go when they need to go?”

Each county determines how state transportation money is spent, said Lawrence Glick, bus operations specialist at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

The county is still considering its five-year plan for transportation and will not address Greenbelt’s transit issues until the plan has been adopted, Glick said. The County Council will review the plan at the end of the summer.

Proposed earlier this year, the plan calls for three major changes to existing bus services: modifying overlapping routes from different services and splitting long routes in Greenbelt; combining routes and removing Metrobus from local circulation in Laurel; and having TheBus — the county-owned bus service — start routes to new and unserved areas in Bowie.

Glick said he was aware of the public transit changes that could be made in Greenbelt and said he hoped the county would be open to improving services in the city.

John Henry Jones does not use the public transportation system, but a stop for several bus routes stands outside his Old Greenbelt house. About five days a week, Jones gets knocks on his door from people living in the apartment complex nearby. They ask him about the bus schedule.

‘‘There is a stop right outside my door,” Jones said. ‘‘I get a lot of questions about it. I’d like to see a schedule be put up on the bus stops.”

VHB will make recommendations for ways to improve the transit system to the city in about a month, Lieberman said.

E-mail Kristi Tousignant at ktousignant@gazette.net.