LANTA Unveils Proposed Service Changes

The Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority has this week unveiled a host of planned changes to its bus routes across the Lehigh Valley in a series of public meetings and on its overhauled website, which launched over the weekend.

The most significant change for ridership might be a change to the way routes are named, an effort to make the system more user friendly, LANTA officials said.

Gone will be bus routes with letter names like B, F and L.

Instead, all routes will have a three-numbered name, like 101, which will incorporate parts of the current A, B, C and E routes, or 105, which will be very much like the current F, which runs through the Southside, the historic downtown and West Bethlehem and out to the Lehigh Valley Mall.

In doing so, the authority will eliminate most route variations that occurred in same-named buses depending on the time of day. For example, the westbound F bus changes its final destination from the mall to the Lehigh Valley International Airport for a three-hour block each afternoon.

Also gone will be the route known as the Night Owl or other routes that go by the name Starlight Evening Service.

It’s not that night service is going away once the planned changes take effect on Aug. 28. Along some routes, they may actually expand. However, buses that follow the same routes night and day will go by a consistent name, again, an effort to reduce ridership confusion.

After two meetings in Allentown on Tuesday and a third Wednesday afternoon in Easton, the LANTA road show made its final stop Wednesday night at the in downtown Bethlehem, where new route plans were posted on easels for the public to review.

There was no formal presentation or discussion, but four LANTA officials, including Executive Director Armand Greco and Owen O’Neil, the authority’s planning director – and the lead architect of the new route design, were there to answer questions or discuss concerns.

“We’re here to get public input,” Greco said. “We still have time to tweak it.”

The new nomenclature system sets up the route numbers in a tiered system, designed to give riders cues about the nature of the service.

Six 100 series routes – numbered 101 to 106 – will run seven days a week and 18 hours a day Monday through Saturday, with eight hours of service on Sundays.

O’Neil described these routes as the backbone of the system. They will encompass some of the most heavily traveled areas of the Valley and will also be the highest priority routes to add service too if LANTA ever gets new resources to expand the system, O’Neil said.

Four of those six routes will serve Bethlehem in some capacity.

Route 101 will start at the LANTA terminal at 6^th and Linden streets in Allentown, and run east through Bethlehem to Center Square in Easton, stopping at the to-be-opened St. Luke’s Hospital, Riverside Campus, in Bethlehem Township.

Route 102 will represent a new service for Bethlehem, providing a direct one-bus route from Broad and Guetter streets to Lehigh Valley Hospital, Cedar Crest, O’Neil said. This was a result of frequent ridership requests, he added.

Route 103 will serve Lehigh Valley Industrial Park in South Bethlehem, running from there, through the Southside and up Broadway and through Allentown, past the Whitehall malls and ultimately ending in Northampton.

The 200 series are routes that are slightly less traveled and will be served 13-hours a day, six days a week.

Higher numbers are reserved for shorter or less-frequently running routes, such as routes 323 and 325, which runs from Broad and Guetter, through the Southside and to the Salisbury Work Center, routes currently known as the V and the Silverline Express.

The 600 series routes will include specialty routes such as the Whirlybird, to become the 620, around the MacArthur Road malls in Whitehall, and the Bethlehem Loop, to become the 607, which runs from Broad and Guetter to the .

Debi Evans, a downtown resident and frequent rider, said she liked the changes she saw.

“I think it will be easier to understand,” Evans said. “Right now, there are three B and three F routes. If you aren’t paying attention, it’s very easy to get on one and go in the opposite direction you want to go.”

For more information on the proposed route changes go to http://www.lantabus.com/serviceproposal.html.

LANTA will also accept public comment on the new route proposals at the following e-mail address: customerservice@lantabus-pa.gov.