Subject: Friends of Transit- Chandler Transportation Commission Meeting Date: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 9:57 AM For Our Friends Who Live, Work or Play in Chandler Friends, In case you missed the following article, the City of Chandler is looking for ways to add more routes and more frequent stops in their City. Sorry for the short notice, but if you can attend the Transportation Commission to let your voices be heard, they meet on THURSDAY at 7:00 PM at the Public Works Building - 215 E. Buffalo Street. Transit planners to ponder more bus routes, stops by Edythe Jensen Aug. 20, 2008 07:45 AM? The Arizona Republic Less than a month after bus service in Chandler grew by 50 percent, city officials are looking to add more routes and more frequent stops by December. Transportation manager Mike Normand said he will take proposals for new service to the Transportation Commission on Thursday but it is too early to say which ones will be implemented. Most target the city's employment center and some depend on agreements with adjoining communities and others on scarce municipal funding, he said. Unlike Phoenix , Tempe, Glendale and Peoria, Chandler has no dedicated transit sales tax, he said. City voters rejected the tax in 1999 and there has been no recent push to put it on the ballot again, Normand said. However, recent requests for resident feedback on transportation planning are drawing a flood of pleas for better mass transit, he said. Chandler also is hearing from large employers along the Price Road Corridor that increasing numbers of workers want to take the bus but schedules and routes are not compatible with theirs. The Transportation Commission meeting is at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Public Works Building conference room, 215 E. Buffalo St. What residents want Better transit service has been a key issue for residents who are answering municipal transportation surveys and interest in taking the bus has grown with rising fuel prices . Municipal officials are in talks with companies along the Price Road Corridor and with neighboring cities to expand existing bus routes and add new ones in late December, said Mike Normand, transportation manager. What large employers want Jethe Becerra, manager of Intel's rideshare program, said up to 300 of the company's 4,300 Chandler employees would take the bus if it brought them closer to their offices. A stop outside the Intel Ocotillo campus is about a quarter mile from building entrances. Intel is in talks with the city to have the bus add a stop inside the campus, she said. Workers are also interested in earlier bus service for shifts that begin at 6 a.m., she said. Leo Baumann, a Wells Fargo vice president, said the company has installed bus bays at the Ocotillo Center campus near Price and Queen Creek roads and is communicating with Chandler officials about expanded transit services for the 2,000 employees who work at the site. That could include adding bus links from Chandler Fashion Center - a hub for regional routes - and the Price Road Corridor, Normand said. Intel and Wells Fargo are Chandler's first- and fourth-largest employers, respectively. Access to new casino Normand said Chandler also is in talks with the Gila River Indian Community to extend Route 65 on Kyrene Road about a mile farther south to the new Lone Butte Casino under construction south of the Santan Freeway. The casino is scheduled to open before the end of the year and the bus extension could happen in December if an agreement is reached, he said. Route extensions working A popular Chandler Boulevard route that was expanded last year has seen such dramatic increases in ridership that the city wants to increase frequencies to every 15 minutes during peak travel times, Normand said. The route from Ahwatukee Foothills to Arizona State University Polytechnic runs every half hour and also serves Intel's campus on Chandler Boulevard, Chandler Fashion Center, Chandler Regional Hospital and downtown businesses.