The three new routes CATS was hoping to implement next month may not be put in place until next year, the transit system announced this afternoon. The delay comes after the Metro Council on Wednesday postponed taking a vote on approving the routes for another 30 days.
“This decision is concerning, since the issues raised at the council meeting were not previously discussed with CATS,” CEO Bob Mirabito says in a news release.
The routes were based on “extensive customer feedback and system reviews,” the release from CATS stresses, and then vetted by three public meetings. But on Wednesday evening, the attorney for Secretary of State Tom Schedler’s office, Wade Shows, told the council the new routes would further congest the hub outside the Old State Capitol, maintenance of which falls to the secretary.
Shows said buses are causing a danger by stopping in fire lanes and inhibiting the ability of school and tour buses to drop off visitors. According to the press release, CATS met with city-parish officials to negotiate where to move the hub that was formerly in front of Galvez Plaza. But the state never signed off on the transfer, Shows said Wednesday night. The council instructed Mirabito and Downtown Development District Executive Director Davis Rhorer to work out a better location for the hub.
“Bringing our riders into the heart of downtown is our ultimate goal for the routes served by this hub. The Old State Capitol was always meant to be a temporary solution, and our teams are continuing reviews of alternate sites for the long term,” Mirabito says in the release.
Rhorer suggested the hub move to River Road, but Mirabito said $500,000 would be necessary to finance a study into how that would affect the hub, a study that could take four months. CATS moved to a five-hub route system from a one-hub system in March. The three new routes—an LSU Express Route, a Nicholson Limited Route and a Garden District Trolley—would bring the total number of CATS routes to 33. —Kelly Connelly
