Tuesday, December 16, 2014

TRANSIT: HRT Service Board Changes (1/18/15)

Up to 3 times a year, HRT tweaks several bus routes to make them more efficient. On my old ladyfriend's 23rd birthday, a few routes will be tweaked either by schedule, routing and adding trips. the following routes will be changed on January 18th, 2015:

Route 4-Church Street: Schedule tweaks. The route has very weird frequencies on weekdays ranging from 60-70 minutes and every 70 minutes on weekends. Hopefully some improvements will be made.

Route 41-Cradock: Routing change. My 1st bus route and my mom's house route will continue down Greenwood Drive then left on the roundabout to McLean then end the route at the Victory Crossing Transfer Center, serving the main end of Tidewater Community College-Portsmouth Campus. Formerly the route turns left to Victory and circles the Victory Crossing Shopping District via Victory Blvd, Airline Blvd & McLean. I have mixed feelings on this change. The blue portion of the map is how the route 57 goes through the TCC/Victory area. (Map credited to gohrt.com, HRT's website) 




Route 45-Portsmouth Boulevard: Schedule changes on 4 trips. Ever since the Route 47 High Street started later service in July 2014, the 45, which used to skip serving the Downtown Portsmouth transfer point after 7pm (currently on detour) has to serve there each trip in order to serve transfers for the 47. On weekday nights, the outbound trips (Portsmouth Bound) leaves DNTC at :20 after and only has 13 minutes to make the 47 which is way too short of a time to do. It's either a hit or miss and if miss, its another hour for the next 47. I, JamieBOO myself called this in because I represent Portsmouth in HRT's Transit Riders Committee and knew firsthand that these times needs to be changed. My first time going home at night i took the 7:20 45 and missed the lineup (I was coming from Busch Gardens). The trips they are adjusting are 7:20, 7:50*, 8:20 and 9:20, all pm's leaving DNTC. (*7:50 does not meet with the 47, however it is the last of the half hour trips before the route runs hourly for the rest of the night)

Route 118-Armistead Avenue: Schedule changes, this route in Hampton runs through HTC to Coliseum Central, Thomas Nelson Community College and Langley NASA base. I don't ride this route often so I can't say much about it.

Route 918: MAX Express Joint Forces Staff College: Added Trips. The 918 runs from Silverleaf Park & Ride nearby the Town Center area of Virginia Beach to Naval Station Norfolk's Staff College (919 is its bigger sister which serves the rest of Naval Station Norfolk). There are two trips in the morning. Naval Base bound (5:40am & 6:35am) and only one in the evening, Silverleaf bound (4:15pm). The route will receive additional trips at 7:00 am & 3:30 pm. 

Post will be updated once schedules are officially in place and highlights after the changes.