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Concerns about stops along Ind. 15 for Kosciusko Area Bus Service’s planned deviated fixed route didn’t hold the Warsaw Traffic Commission back Wednesday from unanimously recommending the route to the Warsaw Common Council.
City Planner Justin Taylor, who made the motion to recommend the plan, said an informational meeting for the city council will be Monday. He said KABS is trying to get the route off the ground and he acknowledged it won’t be perfect right out of the gate.
KABS General Manager Kristin Rude first presented the route to the Traffic Commission at their June meeting where concerns about where some of the bus stops were being considered were expressed.
She returned Wednesday with an update for the route after meeting with several city officials in the past month.
“We’ve been hard at work since our last meeting, meeting with some key stakeholders - city planning, the mayor, Board of Works, the Warsaw Police Department. Also going back to the drawing boards with MACOG (Michiana Area Council of Governments) and looking at some of those stops we talked about,” Rude said.
Providing a backstory as to how the route was developed, she said KABS started working on it last summer. They gathered a list of their most frequented stops through the data in their system and that’s where it started. They then did a public survey in December, asking where they would like to see stops along the route. A community forum in March collected more data on where the public wanted to see the stops.
“And that’s where we developed some of these key locations, was based on that data,” she said.
After hearing concerns from last month’s Traffic Commission meeting, she provided an updated stop list and map to the board Wednesday.
The first concerns she addressed were the Zimmer Biomet and CR 200N and Husky Trail stops. Rude said those are going to be tabled for now, but wanted to present them Wednesday for future implementation.
“But with Husky Trail being under construction and that timeline being somewhat uncertain when we roll out this route, we’re not looking to roll out those stops,” she said. “We understand that that 200 North stop, there’s expected to be a roundabout with some improved sidewalk infrastructure, which I think will kind of fit nicely into a stop there. And then that Zimmer Biomet stop, we had talked about potentially working with Zimmer Biomet on a landing pad or something there for public utilizing that stop in the future.”
Commission member Jason Brown, who missed June’s meeting, asked for more information about what kind of route it was. Rude said it’ll be similar to fixed routes that big cities have, but the deviated portion is where it’ll be different. The route will loop every hour, and hours will be 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. It’s not prescheduled, people just show up at a bus stop and get on when the bus arrives. The only prescheduled portion is the deviation part - once an hour, KABS can offer a deviation up to a quarter of a mile from the route to pick up passengers.
Brown also asked why Rude needed the commission’s permission to have the route. She said there’ll be an ordinance involved for sign placement that the council will need to approve, and the Traffic Commission can provide a recommendation before KABS goes to city council. Rude said they also want the city buy-in.
The next stop highlighted was at Harrison and Sheridan streets. Rude said based on meetings held since June, that stop was relocated to the corner of Lincoln and Clark streets.
On the Buffalo Street and Winona Avenue stop, Rude said they looked at that and decided to consolidate two stops. They had Buffalo and Winona and Buffalo and Center streets on the original map, and those two stops were reduced to Buffalo and Market.
Another stop reviewed was in front of KABS and Cardinal Services, or the Winona Avenue, Smith Street and North Bay stop on the previous route map. Rude said they decided to relocate that to the division alley between KABS and Cardinal’s human resources building. She said that change will cause the bus to divert from the route slightly but the safety benefits outweighed the diversion.
The stops along Ind. 15 generated more than half of the meeting’s discussion.
“We understand that we need INDOT approval for these stops and the signage on those locations, but we wanted to run the changes that we came up with by the group still,” Rude said.
Initially, they had proposed three stops along Ind. 15, but one was removed and another was relocated. She said they kept the one at Ind. 15 and Arthur Street, and moved another one up to Ind. 15 and Anchorage Road. Rude has reached out to INDOT to start discussion on the approval for those bus stops.
Traffic Administrator Lance Grubbs said as busy as Ind. 15 is, if there was anyway to get off that road to load people, it would be a lot better.
WPD Capt. Brad Kellar was concerned about buses stopping in the right lane on Ind. 15.
Warsaw Community Schools Transportation Director Mark Fick said he doesn’t allow any pick-ups on Ind. 15.
Rude said they looked at crossing over into Park Avenue and running the stop down Park, but the issue is crossing the train tracks twice, and with the amount of trains that go through Warsaw, that could add a fair amount of time to the bus route.
After discussion about possible alternative stops and perhaps getting permission to have stops in private parking lots, Warsaw Community and Economic Development Director Jeremy Skinner indicated the stops along Ind. 15 were primarily for dropping people off at certain locations more so than picking them up. He also said timing is the biggest issue if KABS wants to complete the circuit within an hour.
“Ideally, what everybody is saying would be great, but to do that we would need two buses because you could cover that longer stretch and still keep it down to a certain amount of time, otherwise people aren’t going to use them,” Skinner said. “I think the key takeaway here, if I’m you guys, is it’s a starting point. So, figure out what’s the best starting point. We can’t have everything at this point, but we can get a starting point.”
He suggested KABS hit up the state first to see what their comments on Ind. 15 are before “we go trying to change everything at this point.” The state may say they don’t want any stops on Ind. 15. “So before we belabor this to death, let’s talk to INDOT first, see what their position is, and then they can come back. So let’s say we’re going to have some stops somewhere on 15. They may be in some parking lots. We’ll do the best we can to make it safe, but let’s get this feedback first before we belabor this too much.”
On the remaining stops of the route, Skinner said they felt pretty comfortable with what’s being proposed. There likely will be some changes once KABS into the route, but “we’re not going to fix everything today. That’s not really the intent. The intent is, do we have a pretty good start? I think we do. Get it to the council, let’s make some ordinances. We’ll talk to the state and there will be some changes as we implement it to see what works best.”
