COMING SOON—MORE BUS SERVICE, AN ONLINE TRIP PLANNER AND NEW TRANSIT BOXES

Say you’re in the Des Moines area and you want to take the bus to your favorite restaurant for a quick bite—or to a movie theater. What bus routes would you take and when?

                A new trip planner from the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority will help you plan your route to that restaurant, with information on how far you have to walk to the nearest bus stop, what bus routes you have to take to your restaurant, transfers and more. There are still some bugs to work out of the software. However, once the planner is fully up and running, perhaps sometime early next year, you’ll be even be able to find out in real time where your bus is in regards to your bus stop. “I’m pleased to say it’s almost here,” noted Gunnar Olson, the public information officer of DART.  

                If you want to go to that restaurant, you’ll have a greater choice of hours in which to do so beginning August 18. Many schedule changes were announced at the July 30 public meeting. Among them:

·         The Ankeny on-call service will have an additional day of service. Friday service will be added; with that addition, Ankeny on-call service will run on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

·         A new route will link the DART Central station at 620 Cherry Street in Des Moines and the downtown area with the Merle Hay Road corridor from University Avenue to Merle Hay Mall. It will run on Mondays through Fridays with buses running each half hour during peak times and every hour during middays.

·         Weeknight service will be extended to around 11:30 p.m. on the University Avenue, E. 14th Street, Indianola Avenue, SW 9th Street, Beaver Avenue, 6th Avenue, Douglas Avenue, the University/Ingersoll Avenue loop, the fairgrounds and the Hubbell/Altoona routes. The latter routes would replace the on-call services which have been serving east Des Moines.

·         Saturday service will begin one hour earlier and end five hours later for the state fairgrounds, University Avenue, East 14th Street, Indianola Avenue, SW 9th Street, Beaver Avenue, 6th Avenue, Douglas Avenue, Hubbell Avenue/Altoona and the University Avenue/Ingersoll routes. The last buses will leave the DART Central station at 620 Cherry Street for locations outside of downtown will be around 9:45 p.m.

·         Sunday service will run one hour later to approximately 6:30 p.m. for the state fairgrounds, University Avenue, E. 14th Street, Indianola Avenue, SW 9th Street, Beaver Avenue, 6th Avenue, Douglas Avenue, Hubbell Avenue/Altoona, the direct route to Valley West and Jordan Creek Malls, the University Avenue/Ingersoll Avenue loop and the West Des Moines/Clive flex (which can deviate from the set route as per requests by riders) routes.

More detailed about the schedule changes, along with the schedules can be obtained at www.ridedart.com. The buses will carry the schedules beginning August 14.

One of the other topics was the implementation of new fare boxes on the buses in DART’s fleet. The current ones are outdated, Olson noted. The agency has received a $3 million grant for replacing the boxes and was seeking riders such as college students, seniors, young people, disabled and others who use the DART system for a focus group to advise the transit authority on the replacement of the fare boxes. One option would be for the new boxes to use “smart cards” which are worth a certain amount of money. Every time they are used, the amount of the fare is deducted from the cards.

Nothing has been set yet. Plans for this year include obtaining feedback from members of the focus group and holding public meetings. Next year a recommendation concerning the fare boxes would be made to the DART commission. If the recommendation is approved, the policy might be approved and the boxes would be approved in 2015.

The installation of the fare boxes would not affect bus fares. “There are no plans in the raising the prices of fares,” he said.

To learn about the proposed fare boxes, along with the route changes and the online trip planner, several public meetings will be held this week around the Des Moines area. Among them:

·         Wednesday, July 31, 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. DART Central Station, Multimodal room, 620 Cherry Street, Des Moines.

·         Wednesday, July 31, 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. SouthRidge Mall, Suite 75 (in the plaza near Target), 1111 East Army Post Road, Des Moines.

·         Thursday, August 1, noon to 1:30 p.m., DART Central Station, multimodal room, 620 Cherry Street, Des Moines.

·         Thursday, August 1, 4 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. East Side Library, 2559 Hubbell Avenue, Des Moines.

        Meetings will feature a chance to try out DART’s soon-to-launch online trip planner and provide feedback to staff. They will have a question-and-answer session with DART staff members.        

          Language, visual and transportation services are available for meetings upon request. Requests should be made by calling DART at 515-283-8100 with as much advance notice as possible. For more information, call DART at 515-283-8100 or e-mail dart@ridedart.com.