The TAWC Bus Evolves

As I write this, folks in Warren, PA and the surrounding area who depend on public transportation are adjusting to changes in the Transit Authority of Warren County (TAWC) which is the local bus system. It is evolving some more with newly purchased buses, and a decision to make some changes to the routes. In the 1980's as a teen I rode the bus to summer band and thought it was confusing then and at that time it only had two fixed routes all running within Warren and North Warren. In recent years, the routes have been expanded and become slightly more complex as use increases and the demand for broader area coverage is gradually being met.

As of June 1, 2009, the new schedule and modifications to the routes will have gone into effect. I kind of cringe anytime I hear about them making changes to the routes or schedules, not so much because I think change is bad or anything like that, but because like most people, I'm a creature of habit and have gotten into certain routines and well, would really prefer that nobody make changes to my life without consulting me. Expecting to be personally consulted about changes to the bus system is a bit unrealistic so I just cringe and deal with the changes until I rediscover my comfort zone until they change again.

The new routes that are effective as of June 1, 2009, like the previous route system, still include three fixed routes. They now have the routes color coded in addition to labeled based on the furthest points of each route. There is the "Blue Route" formerly known as the "North-South Route" or, as I often heard a lot of folks call it, "the mall bus" still closely resembles the now old "North-South Route" which ran from Pleasant Township to the Warren Mall. The "Blue Route" or "North Warren/Pleasant Loops" runs from the V.A. Clinic located on Route 62, north of the Warren Mall at a place locally referred to as, "the Farm Colony" from there it heads south from the VA Clinic through downtown Warren and on over to Pleasant Township located on the Southside of Warren. With the extension of the route, the time stops have been shifted to accommodate the expansion.

The major changes in routing have gone into consolidating the former "East-West Route" with the former "Sheffield-Youngsville Route". These two routes overlapped quite a bit and in many ways seemed to be very redundant. They have developed two new routes based on the "East-West" and "Youngsville-Sheffield" routes. The new routes cover the same areas their predecessors covered, but are divided up a little differently. The new routes are the "Orange Route" which is also called the "Sheffield Loop" and the "Red Route" also called the "Youngsville Loop".

The "Sheffield Loop" starts at the TAWC terminal on Clark Street in downtown Warren heads East taking riders through the Eastside of Warren, on to Clarendon, PA and then to Sheffield, PA where it turns around and loops to the West heading back towards the TAWC terminal in Warren. If you were to get on the "Sheffield Loop" bus at the terminal and ride the complete loop from the terminal, to Sheffield and back to the terminal, it would take about an hour to ride the entire loop out and back.

The third fixed route is the "Red Route" or "Youngsville Loop" as it is also named. This route begins at the terminal heading West through downtown Warren, making a loop around Warren General Hospital on the Southside and then continues through the Westside of Warren with stops in Starbrick, Irvine, and at its furthest point in Youngsville where it turns around looping back towards the East returning to the terminal to complete its loop.

My first impressions of the new buses overall is pretty positive. I utilize a service dog, and found the old buses to be a challenge to use, but the new buses are setup a little different from the old buses and seem to be more accessible to folks with all types of disabilities. For starters, there aren't any steps to navigate to get onto the bus, though at about the middle of the bus as you head towards the back, there are a couple steps, which I'll try to describe shortly. The fiont half of the bus is designed with wheelchairs, scooters, and people with mobility issues in mind. The way it's designed, if someone in a wheelchair or with a scooter needed to get on the bus, the front of the bus lowers to ground level. Then after the bus is down as low as it can go, a ramp that is built into the floor of the bus flips up and goes out the door creating a ramp for the person in the wheelchair or scooter to wheel themselves onto the bus. The folks in wheelchairs no longer have to have the driver gt out, open a special door lower a fold out lift raise them to the level of the passenger area and then close the lift before climbing back onto the bus. With this new fold out lift the drive never has to leave their seat and the person using the wheelchair or scooter is capable of entering the bus using the same entrance as their fellow non-disabled passengers. There are several seats in the front section that can be lifted up to accommodate a wheelchair or scooter easily. In addition to the flip up seats there are four seats that are higher then a standard seat, from watching different people get on and off the bus and listening to the comments some of them made, I got the impression these higher seats that are probably about as high as a barstool to give you an idea of the height are designed for folks who have difficulty getting to their feet from a seated position while sitting in a standard bus seat. There are also bars that could be used by a person who needed a little extra assistance in pulling themselves up to a standing position. These bars I'm guessing also would be used in the event that the seats were completely full and people needed to stand so they serve a dual purpose. The front half of the bus seems to be designed completely around folks with mobility issues or a parent with a stroller or any number of other possibilities.

As you walk towards the back of the bus you will come to a section in the back half of the bus that you actually need to go up two steps to access it. The steps are clearly marked, and there is a safety wall kind of thing between the two sections. I was curious to see how the seats were spaced, so I took my service dog to the very back of the bus. There are I believe five seats running the entire width of the back of the bus, one seat inline with the aisle and then two seats to the left and right of the aisle that line up with the double seats on each side of the aisle before you get to the last row. Much like a bus you might take to travel across the country, there is another step going from the aisle into the space between the seats. With the old buses, the aisle was narrow and the spacing between seats was also narrow which made it extremely challenging for me to go very far towards the back of the bus and I would generally ride in the first two seats by the entrance of the bus and my service dog was pretty much pinned between the seats with no room to turn around, and if I had to slide over so someone could sit with me, it meant that my service dog would have to be between my legs with her front paws on my lap so that there was room for a second person to sit in the seat with us. The new buses though seem to have remedied that issue by putting more space between the seats which I'm guessing wasn't necessarily designed with service dog handlers in mind, but more with the idea that a stroller could be folded and put in the space between the seats along with the person who had the stroller. It also allows for people taller then five feet tall to be able to sit without having to wedge themselves into the seat. The way the seats are designed, it's possible for my service dog to go under the seat if needed and allow me to share the seat with another human if the bus were full and I needed to share my seat. I won't have to have my service dog partially in my lap now to share a seat and the space is actually big enough that my service dog is able to turn around so she is facing towards me instead of being stuck in a sort of cow catcher kind of space like she was on the old buses. I opted to ride in the back half of the bus on my excursion, not because the driver or anyone told me I had to, but because I figured that it would simplify things in the event that someone with a wheelchair got on, which would mean I would have to move towards the back of the bus so the person in the wheelchair could access the seats that lift up to accommodate their wheelchair. I figure it's easier to be seated and not have to move making the seating area designed for folks with mobility issues available to them without having to make them feel like they are disturbing others by asking them to move so they can have a seat that is easily accessible to them. I hated riding the bus before they got the new buses because of ho unfriendly the design of them was to not only service dogs, but folks with mobility issues. The new buses offer a higher level of dignity and independence to folks with disabilities then the old buses did.

My only complaint and its really kind of a minor thing, is the length of time I have wait when I transfer from the Sheffield loop to the North Warren Loop. The times don't line up as neatly as they did on the old schedule. It's not a huge problem though, because the actual travel time from when I get on the Sheffield bus on the East side to the time I get off the North Warren bus, is actually about the same amount of time as what it took with the old schedule and routing. TAWC does offer a climate controlled waiting area that folks can go into so they don't have to stand around outside waiting for extended periods of time to transfer. So, while it's not all that exciting to sit around for a half hour or more waiting to transfer to the next bus, at least if the weather is bad it is possible to go inside. At this point though, with the design of the new buses and the fact they offer some place for folks to wait inside for transfers the positive aspects of what TAWC has done seems to outweigh the negative aspects. Yes it can be a pain to rely on public transportation, but the efforts being made by TAWC make it a little less painful to rely on public transportation then what it has been in the past. I'm not saying it's a perfect system, just that they are making reasonable attempts to meet the broad range of needs their passengers have in an area that is in many ways more remote then what a larger city would be. Considering the size of Warren, in many ways we are very fortunate to have the public transportation that we do have. TAWC has a website that includes their current schedule with routes and times. I think they may also have information about their shared ride program as well, but if not they do have contact information and from my own experiences, the folks at TAWC are generally pretty good about answering questions or addressing concerns of potential passengers. The TAWC website can be viewed at http://www.tawcbus.com