HTAC Planning Charrette for Proposed Route Change

The Helena Transportation Advisory Council (HTAC), established to make service recommendations for the Helena Area Transit Service (HATS), held a public planning charrette last week to discuss potential bus route changes. Led by consultants from Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates, the charrette began with a Transit Planning 101 session to explain basic concepts for plotting a bus route. The meeting then broke into small groups, where participants established priorities and drew out desired bus routes onto blank maps. The groups were given a limited number of "bus hours", equaling the same number of bus hours that HATS currently operates with.

The goal of the charrette was to examine how the current resources could be used to better serve the Helena Area, and to gain public input in prioritizing the bus stops. The small groups also discussed future service improvements to be made with as new funds are raised.

The consultant plans to take this input from the charrette, along with information from the Transit Development Plan and available demographic information provided by various partners, and identify four Preferred Transit Service Improvements for HATS.