With construction of the Springfield-Sangamon County Transportation Center in full swing, the next few years will involve substantial changes to the city of Springfield and, as a result, the SMTD bus system. Underpasses between 9th Street and 11th Street at Carpenter, Ash, and Laurel have been completed but more construction lies ahead, and bus routes will need to continually adapt to the shifting landscape. January of 2022 will include service modifications on the 10th and the 24th.
Route 12 will detour for 10 days due to rail construction on South 5th Street.
Due to increased mitigation measures, all night service routes will be reduced by 3 hours beginning Monday, November 16th. The last buses leaving the transfer center will do so at 7 PM.
Routes 0E, 12, and 902 will detour for 10 days due to rail construction on South 6th Street.
A new schedule will begin on January 6th, 2020 and this gives us an opportunity to update some routes to address reported issues and make the system perform better overall.
Route 6 - Clear Lake / Junction Circle
Now that the Ash Street underpass is open, Route 6 will resume using Ash Street instead of detouring around it via Iles/Oberlin. Some slight changes to the time checks on the inbound portion of the schedule were also made to account for the difference in travel time.
Route 7 - West Washington
Route 7 travels to and from the west side of Springfield and downtown, providing connections both at the downtown transfer center and at White Oaks Mall. These connections must be reliable for them to be useful and the current version of the route is not as reliable as it could be. For comparison, here is a graph of the average on-time performance of Route 7 versus that of Route 3.
Daily On-Time Performance Averages
Though Route 7 sometimes reaches as high as the low to mid-90’s on some days, it’s much more variable - and thus less reliable - than other routes such as the 3. And since the 7 connects to other routes downtown and at the mall, this can create on-time issues that cascade through the rest of the system.
To remedy this, we will be removing a total of 19 stops on Route 7 that have been identified as having low ridership or as being close enough to another stop to warrant consolidation. This brings the average stop spacing of the route from 920 feet to 1,163 feet and allows the bus to reach higher speeds.
The map below shows the stops we will be removing in black, with the remaining stops in blue. Click here to open the map in a new tab/window.
There will also be some slight adjustments to the inbound time checks to ensure the bus does not waste any time getting downtown.
Route 902 - Southeast Side Night Service
The newly-opened Ash Street underpass will also allow the 902 to resume using Ash from 6th Street to MLK Drive inbound. No changes will be made to the timetable.
See a one-sheet flyer here.
Several routes will have detours during the festival and parade this weekend.
Several streets downtown will be closed for the Route 66 Mother Road Festival being held this weekend so we will be relocating both the day and night transfer centers to 5th & Jackson. Here's a listing of the detour maps for each route:
- Route 1 - North 5th
- Route 2 - North 9th
- Route 3 - Grandview
- Route 4 - West Jefferson
- Route 5 - North Walnut
- Route 6 - East Cook / Ash / White Oaks Mall
- Route 7 - West Washington
- Route 8 - 1st & Highland
- Route 9 - M. L. King
- Route 10 - Southern View / Laketown
- Route 11 - UIS
- Route 13 - MacArthur / Westchester / Jerome
- Route 14 - Wabash / Prairie Crossing / Gaines Mill
- Route 15 - South 11th / UIS / LLCC
- Route 16 - Bergen Park / Sand Hill
- Route 18 - Lawrence / Knox Knolls
- Route 901 - North Side Night Service
- Route 902 - Southeast Side Night Service
- Route 903 - West Side Night Service
- Route 905 - UIS / LLCC Night Service
Several routes will also have to make slightly different detours on Friday, September 22nd due to the parade, starting at 5:45 pm and lasting until the parade concludes. These can be seen on this map.
In November, the Sangamon Mass Transit District (SMTD) Board of Trustees, responding to delays in state payments and continued uncertainty in the state budget moving forward, approved reductions in night service hours proposed in the previous board meeting. Those changes will go into effect Monday, January 9th and include:
- Elimination of Saturday Night Service
- Elimination of Night Service Route 904
- Reduction of all Night Service Monday through Friday by one hour.
Night service after the change will consist of one-hour trips at 6:45, 7:45, 8:45 and 9:45 on the current routes 901, 902, 903 and 905. The nighttime UIS Express to the west side will continue to run Monday through Thursday at 7:15p, 8:15p, 9:15p and 10:15p. Passengers will still be picked up at the bus shelter at Farnham and Lindsay in front of Founders Hall Bookstore.
“Some perceived these cuts as SMTD reducing costs solely by reducing service,” said Steve Schoeffel, SMTD Service Planning & Marketing Specialist. “In fact, these service reductions are just one of several avenues we are exploring to reduce costs.”
Over $600,000 in savings from everything from administrative contracts for items such as office cleaning to millions in capital projects requiring hundreds of thousands in matching local funds being put on hold are being considered. The roughly $180,000 in cost savings from the night service reductions are less than one third of what is already being done while SMTD awaits delayed payments and a clearer budget picture from the state. In addition, technology improvements already approved have been scaled back to still allow for the project to move forward without risking loss of the federal grant funding already committed, but on a longer implementation schedule to allow SMTD more financial flexibility.
“All of these measures add up to a significant amount, and, hopefully, this will get us through for a while without further, more substantial cuts,” Schoeffel added. “We believe this is the least-painful way we can reduce costs and still maintain core services moving forward.”
Should the district’s funding stabilize in the next few months, SMTD plans to re-evaluate these reductions and would consider re-starting services where appropriate.
The Springfield Mass Transit District (SMTD) announced today details for upcoming holiday hours.
SMTD will have regular night service on New Year’s Eve, Saturday, December 31st, with the last buses leaving the night transfer center north of the Old State Capitol for their final trip at 10:45pm.
SMTD does not provide service on Sundays, and there will be no service on Monday, January 2nd for the New Year Holiday. We wish our employees and customers a safe and Happy New Year, and we look forward to 2017!
The Springfield Mass Transit District (SMTD) Board of Trustees, responding to delays in state payments and continued uncertainty in the state budget moving forward, approved reductions in night service hours proposed in the previous board meeting, with one exception. Weeknight Night Service will be reduced by only one hour rather than two hours, as was previously proposed.
- Elimination of Saturday Night Service - Saturday Night Service is a new service which began just two months ago. While passengers who have begun to use the service will be inconvenienced, this service requires extra maintenance, dispatch and paratransit staff in addition to the operators required on the routes.
- Elimination of Night Service Route 904 - Night Service Route 904 runs opposite the 903 along the same route on the west side. Route 904 passengers may be inconvenienced, but route 903 ensures night service will remain in one direction along that route. The change will reduce overall night service by 20% while still leaving passengers another option.
- Reduction of all Night Service Monday through Friday by one hour - The elimination of the last current trip of weeknight service reduces all aspects of SMTD operational costs by one hour five days a week. Similar to Saturday service, this service requires extra maintenance, dispatch and paratransit staff in addition to the operators required to run the route. Night service after the change would consist of one-hour trips at 6:45, 7:45, 8:45 and 9:45 on the current routes 901, 902, 903 and 905.
“Dozens of passengers commented either at one of our three meetings or online, and, as is always the case, those comments were presented to the board for their review and consideration,” said Steve Schoeffel, SMTD’s Service Planning & Marketing Specialist. “While no one wants service reductions, the vast majority of public comment dealt with hardships that would be caused by the 40% reduction in weeknight service hours.”
He added SMTD is taking other steps to reduce cost outside of service reductions.
“Some perceive these cuts as SMTD reducing costs solely by reducing service,” continued Schoeffel. “In fact, these service reductions are just one of several avenues we are exploring to reduce costs.”
Over $600,000 in savings from everything from administrative contracts for items such as office cleaning to millions in capital projects requiring hundreds of thousands in matching local funds being put on hold are being considered. The roughly $180,000 in cost savings from the night service reductions are less than one third of what is already being done while SMTD awaits delayed payments and a clearer budget picture from the state. In addition, technology improvements already approved have been scaled back to still allow for the project to move forward without risking loss of the federal grant funding already committed, but on a longer implementation schedule to allow SMTD more financial flexibility.
“All of these measures add up to a significant amount, and, hopefully, this will get us through for a while without further, more substantial cuts,” Schoeffel added. “We believe this is the least-painful way we can reduce costs and still maintain core services moving forward.”
