Ithaca College Students Look to Improve TCAT Route 11

Representatives from Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit visited Ithaca College this week to discuss ways to increase ridership on Route 11. This route primarily serves IC’s campus, and it’s seen a decrease in ridership over the past two years.

TCAT Service Development Manager Matt Yarrow, and Operations Manager Mike Smith emphasized at a meeting of the IC Student Governance Council meeting on Monday the importance that TCAT’s service is well-used. A majority of students in the room said that they use the TCAT, but statistics would prove otherwise.

“Ridership increase is about eight percent year over year, so it has really turned around in the past few months. Unfortunately, Route 11 is kind of an exception to that,” said Yarrow. In comparison, Route 11 has had a 12.2 percent decrease in the past year.

Although TCAT ridership has increased overall in the past year, Route 11 is an exception. The route has seen a 12.2% decrease in ridership in the past year. Courtesy of Devon Bedoya.

One of the main reasons that Yarrow said may have caused the decrease in ridership, was the presence of ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft. Since those services came to Ithaca in the summer of 2017, some local taxi companies have had to come up with competitive prices–some as low as one dollar.

“That definitely undercut our price of $1.50,” added Yarrow.

Fundamentally, Yarrow said that TCAT wants to provide a sustainable and accessible system that gives people transportation options. Mariama Diallo, an SGC senator for the Class of 2020 and a junior at IC, also thinks it’s important to have choices.

“If I want to take Uber or Lyft, I can do that. But I also have a bus option. So just being able to choose which one is the most efficient for me at that time is good. I appreciate that a lot,” Diallo said.

At the meeting, Yarrow and Smith showed the results of a recent Route 11 satisfaction survey that TCAT pushed out. Only 25 participants responded.

The Ithaca College community expressed a strong desire for a more direct route to the south west shopping center, especially Wegmans. Courtesy of Matt Yarrow, Service Development Manager at TCAT.

Survey results showed a strong desire for a more direct bus route to the south west shopping center, where Wegmans is located.

Yarrow said that TCAT only makes major changes to its system three times a year. These changes usually correspond to the academic year. However, some of the proposed changes, like the direct service to Wegmans, can be made as soon as the next academic year.

Students also said they were dissatisfied with late buses, long time intervals between each arrival, and the length of time it took to get to their destination.

As a freshman, Diallo said she used TCAT buses more often, but now she doesn’t rely on the bus services as much. Ultimately, she thinks that bus rides in Ithaca take up too much time–and being from New York City, this is something she values most.

Some students proposed changes to IC’s policies that would help to increase TCAT ridership. These changes included limiting the amount of distributed parking permits in order to encourage the use of public transportation, and subsidizing the cost of bus passes by including the price in students’ tuition.

Cornell University offers free bus passes that give new-to-Cornell students unlimited access to all TCAT buses. All other students at Cornell can receive discounted passes for unlimited access to all TCAT buses.

Changes like these, however, would need to come from college administration rather than TCAT. So it will take a community effort to help increase ridership for TCAT’s Route 11.