Proposed route changes may mean that bus stop signs will be coming down in a section of south county.
MetroBus service changes, which would be put into effect in September, if approved, call for the elimination of a part of the Carondelet bus route that goes through Oakville. About a dozen other bus routes would be affected under the proposal.
If the plan goes through, some streets on the Carondelet route, including Barracksview, Sappington Barracks and Telegraph Road to Kinswood, would continue to be served by the Lindbergh South bus route. An area that includes Telegraph Road from Kinswood to Pottle and continues on Pottle to Robert Koch Hospital Road to Koch Road would be left without bus service.
That worries Kurt Kestler, who catches the bus in that area every weekday evening to go downtown. Kestler works in Sauget and picks up the downtown MetroLink to take him the rest of the way to his job.
Kestler said the proposed restructuring could mean that he would have to walk almost a mile to catch a bus; now he walks a couple of blocks. Weekend service on the Carondelet route had been eliminated with 2001 bus cuts, he noted.
“They’re trying to sneak through what they couldn’t do two years ago,” Kestler said in reference to the proposed route reduction.
Kestler drives but doesn’t want to commute by car to his job.
“It’s too scary,” he said.
Kestler and other south county bus commuters met with Metro officials June 23 at Cliff Cave Branch County Library to learn more about proposed bus changes and to express their concerns.
Todd Plesko, Metro chief of planning and system development, told Kestler at the meeting that if the Carondelet route reduction were put into effect, arrangements might possibly be made for the Broadway bus to be diverted from its regular route twice a day to pick him up and drop him off near his home.
Other south county residents attending the meeting were concerned about the status of the Oakville express route to downtown.
They left reassured, however, that things wouldn’t be so bad. Under the plan, the Oakville bus might arrive a few minutes earlier in the morning and the bus’ loop through downtown would change slightly.
Suzanne Pessina, who has ridden the Oakville express for five years, attended the meeting “to see exactly what was going on.”
“You hear rumors,” she said.
Pessina said she enjoys taking the bus and doesn’t like to drive to her downtown job.
“I can’t read, and I don’t have anybody to talk to,” she said.
Betty Deimel agreed that the bus provides the best way of getting to her job.
“I don’t think I could drive five days a week to work,” she said. “I don’t have any patience for traffic.’
Sharon Ciaramitaro, a non-driver, has been taking the bus to her downtown job for 33 years, including 20 years on the Oakville express route.
She said the new plan would be better for her and would enable her to arrive right at her workplace.
“I hope it goes through,” she said.
Metro Planner Maureen Williams also attended the meeting. She said bus riders can get nervous when route changes are suggested.
“When they hear ‘restructuring,’ they get uneasy,” she said, “but they find out it’s not quite as bad as they thought it might be.”
Williams noted that proposed route changes were “not a done deal” and that riders who were unable to attend the public meeting also have the option of calling or writing the Metro office or sending e-mail to express their opinions.
Plesko said the 2001 bus route changes took effect because of an $11 million reduction in funding. This year’s proposed changes, however, are prompted by MetroBus’ desire to improve service.
“This is not cutting services,” he said. “It’s basically reallocating.”
In the case of the proposed reduction in the Carondelet line, Plesko said Metro’s intent is to “put the bus where it’s more likely to be used.”
Plesko said the Metro staff tries to accommodate residents’ needs as much as possible.
“It’s a mass-transit system, but it’s really trying to meet the needs of a lot of individuals,” he said. “You’d like to hurt nobody, but it’s difficult.”
