About a dozen people turned out Thursday morning for the first of two Hall Area Transit public meetings to learn more and discuss the Development Plan Update.
The meeting began with a presentation that gave a quick breakdown on the Development Plan Update, funding and previous studies that had been referenced, as well as demographics and statistics of riders. It was followed by a discussion between riders, officials from local organizations representing riders and county and city officials about how the services could improve and what community members would like to see.
One of those organization representatives was Brandee Thomas, the executive director of My Sister's Place. She came to the meeting Thursday morning because so many of the residents at the shelter rely heavily on the Gainesville Connection.
"Ideally, it would be awesome if they'd be able to extend their hours to at least 9 o'clock. That's kind of a 'pie-in-the-sky' sort of thing," she said. "But also if they were able to access further-out areas, like the King's Hawaiian Plant, or the Social Security Office, or just some of the further outlying areas, that would be great."
Thomas mentioned during the meeting discussion that My Sister's Place had a lot of contact with residents from the former Atlanta Street apartments, all of whom were trying to find housing in Gainesville.
"Everyone got a voucher that they were using to access other housing options, but they were limited in their search to the city simply because the bus doesn't go further out to Oakwood or Flowery Branch or Lula or wherever. It just doesn't access those outlying areas, so in order for them to be able to get to work and to get to jobs and to get home, they had rely on the bus, so their focus had to stay on Gainesville," Thomas said.
"And when all those hundreds of residents are looking in Gainesville at one time, then there aren't that many available housing units. So we did see that as a consistent problem."
Access to more locations was the most common request. A representative from the Salvation Army said he had seen workers walking on Queen City Parkway near 985 to get to work. Former City Councilwoman Myrtle Figueras said she had heard a non-profit clinic discovered some people couldn't get to the clinic for an event because of access to the public transit. A few comments were sent in ahead of time from the Chamber of Commerce and Brenau University, the Chamber asking for increased transport to industrial areas, and Brenau asking for for more public transit access to the Athens and Atlanta areas to accomodate their growing international student program.
And, one woman who rode the Gainesville Connection every day said she'd like to see weekend and seasonal routes to shopping centers, as the bus would fill up over the summer months when kids were out of school and tagging along on errands.
The need for extended hours was echoed by others in the meeting as well, including a produce manager at the Jesse Jewell Kroger, who said during the weekends, his taxi cab fare cost almost two hour's pay.
While extended hours and further locations are apparently needed, in order to accommodate these requests, someone has to foot the bill.
"Quite frankly, there's just not enough local funds to draw on what's available," said Wade Carroll, a senior transportation planner with J. R. Williams and associates and one of the outside planners working on the project.
"One of the things we're going to have to do is get in to marketing ideas, to promote use of the system, and to get out into the business community and try to see if there's anything in the private sector."
Carroll also said their was an issue with federal funding matching local funding as well.
Other items discussed included making the Dial-A-Ride system more effective and connecting the program with the Gainesville Connection for those transit-dependent households, and marketing of the two programs.
Another meeting will be held Thursday afternoon from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Hall County Community Service Center on Prior Street. Further comments can also be called in to Phillippa Lewis-Moss at 770-503-3333.
