Message heard yesterday: Reduce traffic by riding a bus

The results of the CATbus Re-Imagining Study were shared yesterday during a couple of forums at Clemson.  The takeaway from last evening’s presentation at the bus service administration office is that there appears to be a bright future for bus transit in the area—as long as the federal government doesn’t cut back on funding.  That is an unknown, according to Dan Boyle whose California company spent 19 months evaluating Clemson Area Transit and has made recommendations as to changes and expansion to better accommodate the public.  The main change would be the addition of a new Clemson route called the Gold Route to complement the Red Route, the busiest of all routes.  Each weekday the Red Route carries more than 3,000 riders.  Other changes include the establishment of a new highway 123 route to serve Hartwell Village, the Central Wal-Mart, with connections to the Clemson campus.  There’s a proposal for the Seneca Express Route to use highway 93 instead of 123 and 76 between Seneca and Clemson University.  The consultants also spoke of expansion into Oconee County to serve Walhalla and the Oconee-Pickens Vocational Rehabilitation Center.  According to Boyle and consultant Karen Simon, service in the future could consider monorails and gondolas to carry students from such housing complexes as the Pier and Highpointe across Lake Hartwell to their classes.  But as Boyle stressed and Seneca’s Greg Dietterick told 101.7/WGOG NEWS after the presentation, in the end, it all gets down to money.