TodaySome see anti-rail mandate in vote
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Article RatingCumberland County Commissioner Rick Rovegno’s May 30 meeting with Capital Area Transit to promote Bus Rapid Transit just got a lot easier.
Republican voters — a strong influential majority in Cumberland — spoke loud and clear during Tuesday’s primary election in nominating commissioners Gary Eichelberger and Bruce Barclay as candidates in the November election. Widely seen as pro-regional rail, challenger Karen Gunnison fared poorly at the polls despite spending heavily and carrying the Republican Committee endorsement.
The board put the brakes on the Corridor One rail project shortly after taking office four years ago, preferring to explore other options, starting with Bus Rapid Transit.
While stopping short of calling the primary vote a mandate from the public, Rovegno conceded that the voters sent a message.
“Certainly there will be the inevitable questions there, as Karen was viewed as closely associated with the rail project,” he says. “Many people indicated to me that while they felt (Gunnison) was very bright, articulate and a hard-working candidate, they expressed reservation about her connection to the Modern Transit Partnership (MTP).
Gunnison serves on the board of directors for MTP, an arm of Capital Area Transit created to oversee the rail project. While she stated repeatedly that Corridor One is not going to extend to Cumberland County and wasn’t an issue, Gunnison was constantly tagged as “pro-rail” in letters to the editor and other forums.
Following her concession speech Tuesday, Gunnison said she had no idea why she failed to connect with voters and added that she would not have done anything different.
Bus option
Commissioners voted last week to pursue a study of the bus option. First up is a meeting between Rovegno and Frank Pinto, chairman of the CAT board.
“The chairman has indicated that he would be supportive of our request and we deeply appreciate it,” Rovegno says. “We hope to work with them to boost mass transit ridership and develop options.”
Eichelberger says it is too early to sound the death knell for Corridor One in Cumberland County but agrees that BRT has momentum now.
“We do want to have the BRT option studied seriously and objectively,” he says, adding that CAT ignored the potential of a busway in order to push forward with rail.
Rovegno was part of a Cumberland group that visited Pittsburgh’s BRT system in 2004.
Port Authority Transit in Pittsburgh carries about 250,000 riders a day, including 40 percent of the downtown work force, on a combination of trains and buses.
BRT lane discussed
Commissioners have discussed a dedicated BRT lane taking passengers directly into Harrisburg. Additional bus service would pick riders up at their homes to make it more convenient and less costly than rail.
Commissioners say it is possible that a BRT line could be eligible for funding under the Federal Transit Administration “Very Small Starts” program. The new program provides funding for smaller, test transportation projects that meet specific criteria.
Commissioners have discussed the BRT potential for several years.
Corridor One backers say BRT was studied previously and rejected. There is no way to get a dedicated busway under Route 15 without spending a lot of money, Corridor One supporters have said, so any BRT routes in those areas will need to exit the busway and travel on regular highway for a short time.
