CoMo Connect transit overhaul wins city council approval

"We know there are going to be challenges," Brooks said in an interview after the council's vote. The city expects to start running the new bus routes Aug. 4.

The current "hub-and-spoke" or "orbital pulse" system of organizing routes — which generally begin and end at Wabash, located downtown — will be replaced with a system in which two commuter routes that span the city north-south and east-west link up with smaller neighborhood routes running tighter circles within certain areas of the city.

Two buses will run in opposite directions along the commuter routes, Brooks told the council during a presentation, and Columbia Transit will dispatch two additional buses on those routes during peak traffic times.

Brooks said that, at the request of the Boone County government, Columbia Transit also plans to add a third commuter route running as far north as Prathersville Road, just outside the Columbia city limits, that would run past the Reality House residential facility. The route will have two morning trips and two afternoon trips.

The route reconfiguration also will mean the end of the underperforming FastCAT Express route, at least as it stands today. The current FastCAT will be replaced with a downtown route that passes in front of Paquin Tower and along the west side of Boone Hospital Center and stretches farther north to Rogers Street. The current route is served by two buses, but Brooks said only one will serve the new downtown route.

Teresa White, a marketing specialist for the city's Public Works Department, said the city hasn't decided whether it will continue to use the FastCAT name for the route.

The city is working with Creative Ink, a marketing firm run by Stephens College students, to determine whether the transit system also could use an overhaul of its image, and White said the firm would take the FastCAT brand into consideration when it proposes its changes.

CoMo Connect earned the support of council members early on; when the idea was unveiled in May, council members called for the overhaul to be completed as quickly as possible. Before the vote last night night, council members again praised the new system but also called for changes.

Fifth Ward Councilwoman Laura Nauser said the city should coordinate bus service with visitation times for the Robert L. Perry Juvenile Justice Center, where she works, to allow caregivers more of an opportunity to visit inmates. Fourth Ward Councilman Ian Thomas noted that none of the new routes passes in front of the University of Missouri Student Center on Rollins Street and said offering that convenience would likely attract more student riders.

Over the past few years, Mayor Bob McDavid has promoted city and University of Missouri financial collaboration to provide rapid bus service, a funding model used in other Midwestern university cities that has proved successful at attracting large numbers of student riders. But that type of arrangement has run into opposition from student leaders and university administrators in years past.

"Until we get a strong collaboration with" MU, "we're going to be swimming upstream," McDavid said.

This article was published in the Tuesday, February 18, 2014 edition of the Columbia Daily Tribune with the headline "Bus overhaul gets city approval; New routes will be established."