The Fox Cities Transit Commission met 06/21/2022. They received a couple of information items pertaining to Winnebago County.
The first item was basically just a note that Winnebago County was putting together a budget that excluded funding for Route 10, shutting down the route at the end of the year. Route 10 is the route that runs between Neenah and Oshkosh. Valley Transit General Manager Ron McDonald had heard that there was some willingness to provide some sort of alternative transportation, but that would only be available to seniors and people with disabilities. People trying to get to Oshkosh for school or work would potentially be out of luck.
He went on to say that Route 10 had been in place long before he had joined Valley Transit, and he thought some people would feel a little lost without it.
A commission member commented that the route started around 2000. When it started, the route connected with the buses in Neenah every hour and worked somewhat like an express bus going back and forth between Neenah and Oshkosh every half hour. Now, they only connect a couple times a day. At some point, someone had decided that they wanted to have more stops along the way between Oshkosh and Neenah. The problem with that was they could not make the trip within 30 minutes anymore, and people ended up sitting in Neenah for 30 or 45 minutes waiting for their connecting buses. The route ended up losing a lot of ridership because people found it inconvenient to be stranded in Neenah.
General Manager McDonald felt that was a relatively accurate assessment of the situation. He thought more attention would be given to the ending of the route near the end of the year. He, however, wanted to get that information out as soon as everything was finalized so that people wouldn’t make plans to use the route to get to a job or UW Oshkosh only for the route to suddenly be cancelled.
The next information item they discussed pertained to the Neenah Transit Relocation Study. General Manager McDonald said that “somebody” (he wasn’t entirely sure if it was the City of Neenah or a different entity) had entered into a contract with a consultant to review the location of the transit center in downtown Neenah and look for a preferred site for a future relocation.
There had been some preliminary discussions and some meetings between the City of Neenah and the consultants. Valley Transit had been brought into a couple of discussions. A survey was going to go out to the bus riders and drivers that he wanted people to be aware of.
He went on to say that the relocation of the Neenah Transit Center was an item in the most recent transit development plan, so it was not a total shock that this discussion was now happening. Prior to Covid, there had been some preliminary discussions about potential sites, and he expected more information to be forthcoming as Neenah worked with the consultant.
Transit Commission member Carol Kasimor confirmed what General Manager McDonald had said. A Neenah alderperson had brought this forward because there was quite a bit of development going on in downtown Neenah and a grant opportunity had arisen that allowed them to look at it more comprehensively. They were in the beginning stages and the survey work would begin soon.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=959037&GUID=C5C28013-2457-4E41-BAD4-F4BE9687DEA2
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