Public comments push Link Transit to backtrack on schedule changes

Earlier this year, Link Transit proposed some sweeping changes to the Link schedule. For the Route 22 to Leavenworth, the changes would have meant the elimination of higher frequency trips in the morning and afternoon. It would be a replaced by a bus coming and going every 45 minutes, which would likely serve the daytime passengers better.
In the end, the public comment received pushed Link to back off those plans, mainly in response to the existing riders.
“We had over the last five weeks, since we released the proposed schedule in early March, in excess of 50 people on their thoughts and feelings about what we were going to potentially do. Not surprisingly, a lot of them were not supportive of the changes on the route they were impacted on, Route 22 to Leavenworth or Route 21 to Chelan,” said Eric West, Link Transit marketing and communications coordinator. “Overall, the bulk of the comments received were not in favor of the changes were proposing, at least the scale of it. Some liked some element of the changes, but if their trip was impacted to great degree, they were not happy.”
The revised proposal keeps the existing schedules intact. Although, Route 21 to Chelan will get some additional trips throughout the day. Routes 20 and 26 schedules will change slightly, with the biggest change being these routes will terminate in Olds Station rather than traveling all the way to Columbia Station in Wenatchee. Route 20 will no longer travel to Manson, but will terminate in Chelan. The new trips on the Route 21 will take the place of the Route 20 trips that are being eliminated into Manson.
Route 22 will see no change to the existing schedule.
“That was the biggest thing for the 21 to Chelan and 22 to Leavenworth. We were getting rid of those higher frequency trips in the morning and afternoon and replacing it with more consistency throughout the day,” West said. “It may be a convenient thing for us to do in terms of operators and buses, but it impacted somebody’s trip. Perhaps they take a bus from Leavenworth at 6:30 a.m. each day, and maybe now that bus didn’t leave until after 7 a.m. under the new schedule. It impacts their whole day. That was the feeling we heard back on.”
The main impetus for keeping the schedule the same on Route 22 was to try and protect the current riders. West said they did not want to have to start over.
“We have a pretty strong, loyal ridership base on both the routes from Chelan and Leavenworth. We didn’t want to upset them to the point they no longer ride and then we have to start attracting new riders,” West said. “Obviously, we want to keep who we have happy and potentially attract more to that same service rather than throw everybody out and try to get a new customer base.”
Even though Route 22 is the only route with no changes planned, West said that is not because Leavenworth was the loudest in the public comments.
“It’s working so well. We heard more from the people in Chelan because we have two routes going up there, one on the east side of the river through Chelan Falls and one through Entiat. Both of those we proposed some pretty drastic changes. Neither were very popular,” West said. “The Leavenworth folks, we did hear from a number of them. We had one supportive and 11 not supportive on the Leavenworth route. It was pretty heavily weighted toward non supportive.”
West said they are back essentially to what is in operation today.
“It is working fine. There is no need to make any changes. Of the four routes we were proposing to change drastically early in the spring, that one has returned basically to where it is now,” he said.
All proposals are available to review at linktransit.com/routes_and_schedules/proposed_schedule_changes.php.
The Link Board of Directors was scheduled to make the final decision on these changes at their regular meeting on April 17. Results of that meeting were not available before press time.
New Link Transit Station
A new Link Transit Station is due to open this year in Leavenworth right behind Safeway. The plan initially was to have the big buses stop there, in order to avoid the heavy traffic in Leavenworth. Smaller commuter buses would take people back and forth to the transit station.
Now West said they are reevaluating that plan.  
“We’re not really sure how that is going to impact our service in the long run. Originally, we planned on terminating the trips on the 22 at the new transit center there, then running a shuttle of some sort through town,” West said. “Logistically, it turned out to be problematic. Do you run that shuttle all day? Do you run it just in the afternoons? If people parked at the west end of Leavenworth in the morning, that means they would have to transfer to another bus to get back to their car in the afternoon.”
West said they are just going to see how things shake out once the transit center opens in the fall.
“We’re going to give it some time to see how things work. If a lot of people chose to drive to the new station and park for the day, then it may make sense to terminate all the route 22’s right there behind Safeway,” he said. “If there are still folks that want to get on at the other end of town, we’re going to have continue doing what we do currently.”
One of the big drivers in using this new station was to avoid the busy traffic in town, but West said that would be an issue for a big bus or a small bus.
“To force a transfer, to have to get on a small bus to get to the end of town, I don’t think we’re gaining anything there,” West said. “We’re just going to go with the flow for awhile and see what the travel patterns are. Then, we’ll make some adjustments down the line. For the first six months of service, we shouldn’t see any significant change.”
The new Link Transit station is going out to bid later this month. West said they hope to have a contractor on board by May. The hope is to break ground there fairly quickly.
“Whether it is completed by fall is kind of up in the air right now. That was the initial intent but we’re two to three months late getting construction going, so we may be looking at a 2019 opening,” he said.
Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.