Ride the new circulator!

On Tuesday, September 3, the new MTU circulator will be introduced with a public media event and ride-along. The new circulator will travel from the transit center to the Village shopping center. There will be buses moving in both directions during the day with the counter clockwise route continuing into the evening.

It will travel along Main, past the public library, to West Ave (YMCA) to Jackson and State Road, down Losey to Green Bay and back toward downtown past Gundersen Health Center, the Southside Neighborhood Center, and People's Food Co-op.  It will run every half hour during week days.

The ride-along will depart from the transit center on Tuesday morning at 9:40 a.m. Come a little early to meet the new MTU director, and the mayor, and show your support for public transportation.

Summer's over ... back to work

Thanks to all who came to our May meeting and especially those who shared ideas and volunteered to help out in the future. And thank you to James Krueger, interim MTU Director, and Jackie Eastwood, La Crosse Area Planning Committee Transportation Planner, for volunteering their time to talk and listen to us!

A few updates.

• Badger Street at UWL is now off the table for a bus route. In their remake of the Badger/East Avenue area, the University has totally removed the intersection and deconstructed the street. This will have adverse effects on student bus ridership for a long time. When the University starts in on their next multi year planning process, we must be sure to have bus advocates, including students, faculty, and staff, at the table (and global warming). Stay tuned on this one.

• There is a now a new MTU director and  I hope we can arrange a meet and greet some time this fall.I

• A new circulator route will replace the current UWL to downtown route. You can view it here. It will be rolled out after Labor Day. The new route covers much more ground and connects the Village Shopping Center/Central HS area with the downtown via West Ave. There will be a media event to introduce the new route - if anyone has details, please comment or email.

• On Sunday, September 2 between noon and 5 p.m. the city will block car traffic on Main from 8th to Fifth Ave, on Fifth Ave from Main to King, and on King to Fourth (Burns Park to Cameron Park) for OPEN STREETS. The MTU will have a bus there and I hope we can have a LATA table right next to it and help encourage people to learn how to ride the bus, pick up a schedule, and learn how to get their bike on and off the bus. In the past, buses at community events have not offered much info about the benefits of public transportation. So, if anyone is available to help staff the table, please fill out the form. (https://goo.gl/forms/GrU2JiEM56IO48cq1) We will be someplace on Main between 8th and 7th. (FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/199420267349944/ and for non Facebook users: http://www.bfw.org/rides/open-streets-la-crosse/

• Kevin Hundt had a great letter to the editor in the La Crosse Tribune recently asking why local government can't spend its transportation money to enhance PUBLIC transportation. Letters to the editor are a great way to keep a topic in the public mind. Especially now that wheel taxes and road projects are in the news, reminding our neighbors that not everyone has or drives a car and none of this will help them/us have better transportation options would not be a bad thing.

• The La Crosse Sustainability Commission has had public and alternative (to private cars) transportation as a sub group focus this past year. At their next meeting (Thursday, September 20 at 4:30 p.m. at the La Crosse County Admin Center) they will be talking about what to focus on in coming months. The meetings are open to the public and offer a chance to show support for continuing work on improving public transportation in our area.

• La Crosse's MTU Board meets, it appears, every other month on the third Tuesday at 4 p.m. in City Hall. These meetings are also open to the public and a good opportunity to learn first hand what's happening. If anyone regularly attends these meetings and would like to post a summary here, please email or comment to be added to the list of bloggers.

I hope we can come up with a schedule of quarterly meetings and other events. I would love for us to have a meeting in the back of a bus sometime, for example, or take a SMRT bus field trip. For our fall meeting (second half of October?) I hope we can meet and talk with the new MTU manager and maybe share a generic info presentation that we could all use to help educate at our work places, schools, clubs, neighborhood centers, etc. Also, I'd really like to get some volunteers to plan a monthly, HOW TO RIDE THE BUS ride (maybe on a Sunday late morning or some time that's not usually busy) that might leave from UWL. Well, there are lots of ideas.

Please comment or email with your additions, correction, questions, or ideas.