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Meeting On Mass Transit In Albany Being Held Tonight

A forum tonight in Albany will focus on improving public transportation and accessibility in the area.

Citizens for Public Transportation, an advocacy group, has invited Doug Bullock, chair of the Albany County Legislature’s Mass Transit Committee, to speak at its monthly meeting tonight. The Democrat says he will discuss his desire to have the Capital District Transportation Authority run buses through Colonie Center.     "The Colonie mall has a bus stop on Central Avenue where it forces people who wanna go shopping at the mall to walk through the parking lot either at the Colonie mall or the Northway Mall where Target is. We want them dropped off where they were dropped off where they were dropped off before a long time ago. Right at the mall. I think it would be very easy to do that with Colonie mall since you've got an abandoned building there called Sears. There'd be no problem of dropping them off there and there are new owners of the Colonie mall which we're in negotiations to do that. The old owners strictly forbid it and the bus stop was moved out of the Colonie mall. Now there's new owners so we've started negotiations for a bus stop there."

CDTA Director of Corporate communications Jaime Watson disagrees.   "We've been outside Colonie Center for a number of years. Because when Colonie Center was redesigned, it really wasn't redesigned to have buses coming in and out of the mall, so as you know, Colonie Center, once you get in there, between parking and traffic, it's pretty near impossible at this point for one our 40-foot buses to actually be able to navigate."

Bullock is also concerned about bus routes serving the Albany County Jail.   "People going to the jail not only don't have a direct bus route from the city of Albany to the jail, but they get left off about an eighth of a mile before the jail and they have to walk through a neighborhood that is not so pleasurable, and finally get to the jail.  What we've done and what the sheriff has agreed to do is put a bus stop right in the entrance of the jail, which has plenty of room, which they had before and I don't know why it got discontinued. They're in negotiations with CDTA right now to do that." 

Watson replied "We have been working on that with the Albany County Jail and it is in the works."

Bullock favors increased funding for CDTA, holding fare rates steady, maintaining existing bus stops, giving people with disabilities equal access, and expanding on-demand service. He's critical of CDTA's service adjustments coming up in April.   Again, Watson:   "It's essentially trips that are being, you know actual trips that are being discontinued so it may be a low ridership trip at 6 a.m. or a low ridership trip in the afternoon at 3 p.m. but there are no bus stops being eliminated as part of those changes."

The Citizens for Public Transportation meeting starts at 6 o’clock tonight at the Main Branch of the Albany Public Library.

Dave Lucas is WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief. Born and raised in Albany, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of local radio since 1981. Before joining WAMC, Dave was a reporter and anchor at WGY in Schenectady. Prior to that he hosted talk shows on WYJB and WROW, including the 1999 series of overnight radio broadcasts tracking the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with a cast of callers and characters from all over the world via the internet. In 2012, Dave received a Communicator Award of Distinction for his WAMC news story "Fail: The NYS Flood Panel," which explores whether the damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee could have been prevented or at least curbed. Dave began his radio career as a “morning personality” at WABY in Albany.
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