Metro Magazine

JUN 2013

Magazine serving the bus and rail transit & motorcoach operations since 1904

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CHITTENDEN COUNTY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY (CCTA) BURLINGTON, VT. FLEET TOTAL- 102 VEHICLES (FIXED-ROUTE AND PARATRANSIT) Burlington, Vt.-based CCTA was chartered in 1973 by the Vermont General Assembly, after Burlington Rapid Transit, a private bus contractor, went out of business. CCTA offers fixed route, demand response, commuter shuttles, and ADA and paratransit services. In addition to its fixed-route services, CCTA offers downtown employees a program called the Downtown PARC. This program shuttles employees from a satellite parking lot on Pine Street to downtown Burlington businesses, conserving scarce downtown parking for shoppers and visitors. It also provides shuttles from senior housing complexes to local supermarkets and neighborhood specials for student transportation to Burlington schools. Te agency serves eight of Vermont's 14 counties, and in 2011, CCTA merged with the Green Mountain Transit Agency. "For people who like change, it has been very dynamic, exciting and highly responsive to the community's needs," says Bill Watterson, GM for CCTA. "We have been adding services during peak travel times, but the challenge for us has really been growing our feet, because we have high service demands at times when we don't have any spare equipment." The agency had been able to accommodate the ridership growth, but has recently hit a wall in terms of its capacity to grow its feet and still maintain and store it in Burlington. "Going forward, we have a big challenge of being able to expand our operations and maintenance base here in Burlington, so that we can take care of the feet that needs to grow to service the routes we have," Watterson adds. Along with increasing the number of trips during peak travel times, CCTA added seven new 45-foot Motor Coach Industries (MCI) Commuter buses in November 2012 to service its Link Express routes traveling from Burlington to Montpelier, Middlebury and St. Albans. CCTA pursued funding for the larger buses in 2011 based on the ongoing growth of its three Link Express routes and CCTA serves eight of Vermont's 14 counties, with ridership on its Link Express commuter services growing at a rapid rate. JUNE 2013 mETRO mAGAZINE > 35

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