The Town of Colonie, CDTA, and CDPHP are collaborating on a new bus stop at a busy medical complex.
Wellnes Way is home to CDPHP's state-of-the-art medical complex with an in-house lab and pharmacy. Although the official grand opening is in June, the facility is already a beehive of activity, seeing hundreds of patients a week. The partners say more than one in five patients skip medical care because they don't have transportation. CDTA CEO Carm Basile says now they do: it has installed a bus stop at the front entrance.
"This building is open about a month and this parking lot is full. And this facility is not even completed yet and completely open. So it's an amazing thing. But the partnership involves our bus service. So two months ago, there was bus service that went up route nine. Now because of this partnership, bus service comes up route nine, into Wellness Way, stops a few short yards from here, and proceeds out. It connects this complex to Albany, to Troy to Cohoes and Latham all with one bus route,” said Basile.
CDPHP's Brian O'Grady says the new building opened in January and bus service began six weeks ago.
"CDPHP and our employees are now part of CDTAs Universal Access Program, which gives our employees access to all of the mobility options of CDTA. Once again, allowing people to work, recreate shop and hopefully minimizing, you know, the carbon footprint that we have and really easing up on the you know, the traffic on the corridor, and hopefully, you know, being able to use the bicycles, the buses, and all the other options that CDTA has to offer to continue to have a great lifestyle that we've come to know and expect in the town of Colonie," O'Grady said.
Basile says CDPHP joins 50 Capital Region colleges and businesses that pay for employees and students to use CDTA services by swiping their company or school ID card through fare boxes.
"The more they use our services, the more services that we can provide. And frankly, it's the reason for our ridership growth," said Basile. "We're now way past where we were when the pandemic began. In fact, we're 20% higher than last year, and we expect continued rises throughout the year."
Republican Colonie Town Supervisor Peter Crummey says the partnership promotes sustainability and traffic reduction.
"This opportunity allows people who work here to have free passes in order to engage CDTA buses and other forms of transportation. And we believe over the next two years of our partnership in this regard, that it will not only be of assistance to the folks that are working in this building right now, which as you know, is the largest private health care facility in the Capital Region, but also will encourage people who are already working in this neighborhood as well, to want to have their employers also partner with the town of Colonie and CDTA to be able to manage traffic counts here in the north end of town," said Crummey.
Route 182, Troy-Albany via Cohoes and Latham, stops along Wellness Way at regular intervals weekdays between 6:47 a.m. and 6:09 p.m.
