It’s a rainy spring afternoon as the Green Mountain Transit bus rolls up to the top of the Burlington hill. The windshield wipers swish back and forth, creating tiny rivers down the glass and sending raindrops dancing through the air. The doors creak open, and I step inside, peeling back my wet hood. I take my seat in the back next to a wrinkled woman carrying an umbrella. Looking around, I spot a boy wearing a dinosaur hat with his mom, a man carrying grocery bags, and an elderly couple trying to decipher a map. There are no other college students. The bus lurches forward as we make our way down Main Street.

Public transportation in the United States addresses the nation’s energy, economic and environmental challenges – helping passengers commute to different places without the need for personal vehicles. People are using public transportation in increasing numbers as local communities expand transit services, boarding public transportation 35 million times each weekday (American Public Transportation Association, 2018). Public transportation benefits numerous parts of society, from communities of riders, to businesses, to governments, to local economies. It is a $68 billion industry that employs more than 420,000 people  (American Public Transportation Association, 2018). It provides personal mobility and freedom for people from every walk of life, as it provides transportation​ options to get to work, go to school, visit friends, or go to the grocery store.​ Environmentally, communities that invest in public transit reduce the nation’s carbon emissions by 37 million metric tons annually  (American Public Transportation Association, 2018).

Public transportation in downtown Burlington. Photo credit: Isabel Lisle

In Vermont, public transportation does not quite mirror these impressive nationwide statistics.  Transportation accounts for about 45 percent of Vermont’s carbon emissions (VT Natural Resources Council), the majority of which comes from single-occupancy vehicles. The state’s rural landscape poses challenges for creating public transportation infrastructure, with historically small town centers surrounded by working landscapes. As a result, public bus transit links only small pockets of the state where people and jobs cluster.

Green Mountain Transit (GMT), the regional public transit system providing bus service in Chittenden County, is the first and only transit authority in the state of Vermont. The municipality provides routes through Burlington, South Burlington, Essex, Shelburne, Williston, Winooski, Milton, Hinesburg, and part of Colchester. GMT also offers a LINK Express route that runs to Montpelier, Middlebury, and St. Albans. The mission of GMT is “to promote and operate safe, convenient, accessible, innovative and sustainable public transportation services in the northwest and central Vermont region that reduce congestion and pollution, encourage transit oriented development and enhance the quality of life for all” (GMT, 2019). To a large extent, the network is making strides towards accomplishing their mission, but significant improvements to the operation must be made in order to encourage more people to ride the bus.

Kate Longfield, Transportation Planning Intern with the Burlington Department of Public Works, loves public transportation. Last summer, she rode the bus to Montpelier a few days every week for work. She appreciated “the time [she] spent not worrying about traffic or directions, and instead catching up on work, sleep, or [her] favorite book.” Kate, frustrated that more college students don’t take the bus, says that in her experience students will ride the bus once, find out the app is broken, end up in the wrong place, and never take the bus again. She hopes that they work on improving the public transportation system to attract student interest.

Sarah Montroll, a sophomore at UVM, grew up riding the city bus every morning to Burlington High School. She passionately critics the bus system, explaining that the bus frequently ran late, and it would take her longer to get to school by city bus than it would to drive there. She says at times she even “felt unsafe riding to school”, because of the types of people that used the public transportation system.

Richard Watts, assistant research professor at UVM’s Center for Research On Vermont, is working with GMT on addressing these issues and increasing bus ridership. He explains that GMT is in the midst of a deep re-think on their core Chittenden County routes. The re-think, known as the Next Gen study, seeks to increase efficiency, and make it easier for the public to navigate the system. It is scheduled to start in late June 2019. Strategies include cutting bus headways to twenty minutes (the time between buses) on the four most used lines. This is expected to improve on-time schedules and cut the wait time between buses. Reliable and frequent buses will hopefully mean that riders won’t even need to check a schedule. A fare increase, for the first time since 2005, is planned to raise fares from $1.25 to $1.50. He says that perhaps one of the biggest impacts is a new app from a platform called Swiftly, or “transit” to the users, that will track buses in real time and allow bus riders to buy tickets online.

The Swiftly app. Photo credit: App Store

As a college student at UVM, I am excited about the possibility of this new and improved bus network. An accurate app would make a huge difference in my ability to take the bus across town. Perhaps student outreach on campus would create a positive connection between the municipality and the student body, while increasing the number of student riders. There are several public meetings put on by GMC in the next couple of weeks to incorporate public suggestions into the final plan.  An efficient, well operated, reliable transit system in Vermont has the ability to transform the current car fuel transportation model into a network that enables people to commute while reducing miles travelled. It is up to the citizens of Vermont to work with GMC to make this vision a reality.

Isabel Lisle, our spring 2019 Vermont Independent journalism intern, is a 3rd year University of Vermont student pursuing an undergraduate environmental studies degree. This is her third article in a four part series focusing on TRANSPORTATION in Vermont.