The City of Logansport and Cass Transit are planning to provide a free bus service in Logansport this fall as part of a pilot project. Cathy Martinez is the director of transportation for Cass Transit and talks about the new service that Cass Transit plans to provide beginning in September.
Basically Cass Transit is an on demand service so if you’re wanting to call in for a ride, you can call directly in to our line, wait for your ride, we go to your door, we pick you up,” Martinez says.
“The city bus, basically what we’ll do is we will have stops placed throughout town, hopefully in every different area of town. You may have to walk 2 blocks, 3 blocks to get to that bus stop, but you’re able to hop on that bus for free and ride it to your destination, or close to what your destination would be. You would know the specific pick up times, drop off times, things like that. You wouldn’t have to worry about waiting for your bus. Obviously it’s free of charge so that’s a plus right there. It might just speed up, make it a little bit quicker for people to get to where they need to go.”
Seger Mathew is the executive director of the Cass County Council on Aging, which operates Cass Transit.
“What the people need to understand about this route is that it is a one hour continuous loop,” Mathew says. “So if you go to the first location at 8 a.m, let’s say that’s your spot, you know it will also be from 9, 10 and 11. There will be a one hour break between noon and 1 to switch staff and to obviously give everybody a break, so if they’re out there, they need to understand that there’s going to be that extra hour before they’re picked up.”
“Our goal is to put benches at the stops with the stop times on them, but we’re still working with the community to try to get the donations and the funds in to build the benches, and then we’re going to customize them.”
The Logansport City Council gave preliminary approval to providing $10,000 to fund the city bus program for three months. That will provide up to 5,000 rides. A second vote on the funding is expected at their September meeting. The exact route for the bus service is still being finalized.
Cass Transit will continue to offer its on-demand service.
“Our dispatch office hours are open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” Martinez says. “Obviously the numbers are on the side of the bus, and we get a lot of phone calls for that, 754-5555. Call in, speak with our dispatcher, let them know what time you want picked up, where you’re at, what your destination is, and we try to get you a bus as close to that time as possible. It’s really simple.
Seger Mathew says they’ve provided more than 100,000 rides so far this year.
