White Plains CitizeNetReporter - <i>King Komments:</i> No Give on Shuttle Buses to the Train

King Komments:By White Plains Councilman, William King, April 8, 2002, 4 PM EDT: The councilman has been pursuing shuttle bus service to the White Plains Transit Center. Here is his report on where the County stands.

I met with County DOT Commissioner Larry Salley this morning in his office in Mt. Vernon along with County Director of Surface Transportation Richard Stiller. We had a pleasant meeting but it was basically left that the County cannot afford to tweak its tightly scheduled office park loop shuttlebus service to allow any kind of pickups or dropoffs of city residents in residential neighborhoods such as the Highlands/Soundview along the way.

They explained to me that a bus returning from delivering office workers from the train station to their offices along Westchester Ave. and elsewhere has a limited amount of time to get back to the station in time for its next run. A shuttle bus running on the "A" loop route might come back to the White Plains Train Station and then go back out on a "C" route run and then come back and go back out on an "H" route run, etc.. The County tries to have as many different office loop runs in the 4-hour a.m. and p.m. peak periods as possible, meeting the maximum number of arriving trains.

Most of the drivers work 8-hour shifts split into two 4-hour stints, one for the a.m, one for the p.m. and are off during the middle of the day. The most senior drivers get to work any overtime which the County tries to limit to contain costs.

The service is expensive. The County recoups less than 20 cents on the dollar for every dollar received in fares, compared to nearly 50 cents on the dollar for the entire system. The 50-cent figure is quite high by national standards for suburban bus systems.

Despite countywide budget pressures, County Executive Spano intends to keep the office bus service running indefinitely, although limited federal "CMAQ" (Congestion Mitigation Air Quality) 3-year funding of 1 or 2 routes is ending soon and one of the routes may not be continued. According to Larry, there is no more CMAQ funding out there for additional shuttle buses such as a bus specifically targeting residential neighborhoods. I was told that any CMAQ funding usually comes with a 3-year time limit after which the costs have to be picked up by local funding sources.

Larry and Rich feel they would have to add another driver to be able to provide residential train station service in White Plains. The cost of this would be $170,000 a year which includes the salary and benefits of the driver, fuel and maintenance of the bus, and overhead expenses for both the bus company that the County contracts with and the County itself. This cost does not include the cost of the bus itself or any amortization of the cost of a bus.

They indicated that in the past they have leased used shuttle buses to towns like New Castle (Chappaqua) for $1 a year and the municipality paid all the operating costs. They also mentioned that they are going to be replacing their fleet of 20-foot long shuttle buses (which are actually built on van chassis's) with new 30-foot long buses later this year. (The standard length of a regular, non-articulated bus is 40 feet long.) The 30-foot long buses with more seats will be similar to what rental car agencies use at airports. This way, the County hopes to provide the same number of seat miles with less drivers.

I asked about the City of White Plains possibly leasing one of the used 20-foot long shuttlebuses for a $1 a year. They said we might be able to but these would be at least 5 years old and the federal gov't guidelines are that buses like this (converted vans) really are only supposed to last 4 years. Therefore, they might not last that long or would be more expensive and problematic to maintain. They say they take a beating.

Maybe the bodies of these shuttle buses could be reused if a whole new engine, transmission and underbody was used. I don't know if this would save the City any money but, if anybody would know, Bud Nicoletti would.

So, I wasn't too hopeful that going down to Mt. Vernon (35 minutes on the #40 bus) would yield positive results but, since the meeting was offered, through Larry Schwartz, I figured I better take advantage of the opportunity of meeting with the Commissioner and Richard Stiller with whom I have talked to over the phone and exchanged several emails over the years.

The only thing that I mentioned that possibly might be looked at further after I left is whether some buses could be routed on Bryant Ave. to/from Westchester Ave. (along with South Lex and Longview Ave./Martin Luther King Blvd.) as at least a quick passthrough through the Highlands that at least some residents might be able to take advantage of, without slowing the shuttlebuses down much. I'll bring this up again with the County if I don't hear anything back from them on this.

I said, with all the congestion on Westchester Ave. and in Downtown WP, the shuttlebuses may be able to get to/from the Westchester office parks faster and so having some kind of limited residential service wouldn't slow them down much.

Such a bus would provide a service to the central and northeast Highlands as well as to Bryant Crescent, the Dales, the townhouse development at Bryant and North Street and down North St. to Havillands Manor if people want to walk up to Bryant to catch a shuttlebus.

I definitely did not get any agreement with possibly some shuttlebuses coming back from IBM or the Rennaisance Hotel area via the Hutch, North St. and Rosedale or Ridgeway. - BK


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