AROUND THE REGION

Effect next Sunday, April 26, GRTC will reduce service on the following routes:

#4A Montrose / #4B Darbytown will lose their 15-minute peak frequency and will run 30-minute service all day long.
#39 Fairmount/Oakwood will be discontinued until further notice.
#75 Three Chopt will be discontinued until further notice.
#78 Cary/Maymont will lose its 30-minute peak frequency in the morning and will run hourly until the evening peak.

GRTC's reasoning for these service reductions: "...to redistribute those resources to busier local routes with passenger counts averaging greater than 20 people per bus. Re-deploying vehicles enables customers to better observe physical distancing guidelines on-board buses during the COVID-19 crisis." While we never want to see cuts to bus service, these specific cuts and the reasoning behind them make sense in this particular moment. For context, Jarrett Walker, who spends his entire professional life thinking about and redesigning bus systems, wrote up some thoughts this week about why, how, and when to cut service—and how agencies can recover from those cuts.

This past week GRTC announced they've been able to clean 100% of their entire bus fleet each and every day. From the email: "This is four times faster than normal, and this speed is thanks to the voluntary overtime efforts our of Cleaning and Maintenance staff. There are literally dozens of people behind-the-scenes working for our collective public health." Huge thank yous to the transit workers making this happen!

Mayor Stoney took some time this past week to thank bus operators and transit workers for the critical role they're playing during this crisis (via a socially-distant YouTube).

Learning opportunity alert! This coming Friday, April 24th, Partnership for Smarter Growth will host a webinar on the value of transit featuring Stewart Schwartz from PSG, GRTC CEO Julie Timm, and Chief of Public Transportation at the Department of Rail and Public Transportation Jennifer DeBruhl. You can register over on the Eventbrite.

Stay well,

Ross Catrow