- February 12th, 2007, 12:56 pm
#60194
http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... ws!archive
Adding bus service to Liberty University in January more than doubled Greater Lynchburg Transit Co.’s total number of daily passengers.
LU pays GLTC $75,000 a month to have the bus company run six buses on-campus. The contract will last until May but could be renewed.
Between Monday, Jan. 29, and Friday, Feb. 2, on-campus bus service saw a daily average of nearly 6,800 passengers.
Mike Carroll, general manager of GLTC, said bus service in the rest of the city averages 3,000 to 4,000 passengers daily. GLTC runs up to 16 buses in the rest of the city.
“We’re pleasantly surprised at the numbers,” Carroll said.
In all, passengers took more than 72,000 trips on Liberty University’s bus routes between Jan. 15 and Feb. 4. That time period marks the first three weeks GLTC ran buses on campus.
The figures are lower on the weekends. During the past two weekends, the bus company recorded about 700 daily passenger trips at the school.
S. Lee Beaumont, LU’s director of auxiliary services, said the weekend numbers should grow as people become more accustomed to having bus service on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.
“The need is really seven days a week,” he said. “We get 40,000 to 50,000 people a year in here for special events every year.”
The school’s agreement with GLTC puts no restrictions on who can use the campus shuttle.
Jerry Falwell Jr., LU’s vice chancellor, said that factor plus the school’s projected growth make it imperative that the school, Lynchburg and Campbell County work together on a comprehensive mobility plan, which would focus on streamlining bus, automobile and pedestrian traffic.
The campus’ current daily population, including faculty, staff and students, is about 12,000 people.
By the year 2020, that campus population total could be hovering around the 30,000 mark.
In early January, GLTC’s passenger numbers were lower as new LU students arrived to the campus for one week of orientation.
During that week, GLTC ran four buses, not six, and averaged about 260 passengers a day on campus.
The numbers rose dramatically the following week.
Now, bus company and school officials are discussing modifying GLTC’s routes to offer students access to Wards Road businesses, River Ridge mall and Candlers Station shopping centers.
Under a proposal now being considered, GLTC would modify its routes to create a loop that runs from the university to Candlers Station, Wards Road and the mall, Carroll said.
The loop would stop at Liberty University hourly except Thursday and Friday evenings and all day Saturday, when it would stop at the school every half hour.
The mall would serve as a transfer point from that route to another route that would run between the mall and the Plaza, the hub of the bus company’s route system.
That would mean more frequent service for all bus passengers - not just LU students - going to Wards Road, the mall and Candlers Station, Carroll said.
GLTC is a nonprofit service subsidized by the city. Adding routes usually means the city must pay more.
But for these modified routes, LU would pay the city’s share to the tune of roughly $30,000 for the rest of the semester, Carroll said.
“Everybody kind of wins on this, and the city’s not paying any extra,” he said.
The changes are still under discussion.
“It’s not inked on the page yet,” Carroll said.
If school and bus company officials give their approvals, Carroll said the modified routes could start Feb. 25
4:28:2009-RIP Jeff Taylor
PAmedic wrote:you're absolutely right
That might be the longest sentence I've ever read.
You stand to drive those things)
- By ECC29
- By Purple Haize