The evening of April 28th, Ontario County planner Lindsey Withrow and the consultant team hired by the county – David Sharfarz of IBI Group and myself, Ellen Oettinger of Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates – held an informational meeting open to the public at Canandaigua City Hall. There were 15 participants, all residents of the county who either use CATS service often or are involved in transportation issues and planning in the County.
David gave an overview of the study we’re conducting on behalf of the county, including information about county demographics, major destinations in the county, and ridership figures for the CATS routes and Dial-A-Ride service. Looking at all of this together, the team is trying to find out more about how CATS can better serve the people who ride it most. The project team had spent Tuesday and Wednesday riding CATS buses handing out surveys to everyone on board. Our goal is to get as much feedback as possible from people who use the CATS service, and to find out what changes would benefit current riders as well as encourage more people to ride.
Several participants had questions relating to their experiences using CATS buses. David and Lindsey discussed some of these issues. Following this more formal question-and-answer session, we all broke up into smaller groups to talk about the study and CATS service overall. Everyone attending was encouraged to take the survey, which can also be found online here: www.transitsurvey.info.
