SOUTH BRUNSWICK – Township Manager Matthew Watkins gave an update on the intratownship shuttle bus service that may clear up many of the traffic problems in South Brunswick during Wednesday’s Township Council meeting.
SMART, or South Brunswick Municipal Area Residential Transit, will be a commuter shuttle service during the morning and evening rush hours. It will also serve senior citizens and the disabled during the afternoon.
“We will be able to operate SMART in the springtime, and no later than June,” Watkins said. “A lot of that is dependent on getting funding for the operations.”
The service will cost about $550,000 in addition to the current $300,000 the township already spends on their buses.
Watkins is aware of the slow process. He is still seeking a way to finance 100 percent of the operational costs.
“This has been painfully slow,” he said. “It just seems anything we do on this is taking forever to do.”
SMART will also feature a geographic information system (GIS) that will let residents track where the vehicles are in real time. This too has been moving along slowly.
“The SMART tracking system, the backbone of the system, has been the hardest part of the process,” Watkins said. “It’s been a lot of federal regulations because we’re using federal money. It’s a lot of red tape.”
Mayor Frank Gambatese expressed some concern about the system’s potential riders.
“What we don’t know at this point is how many riders we’ll have,” Gambatese said. “Is there going to be a fear?”
Watkins said that he is aware of the fact that those using the service may be small at first, but there is a plan in place to gradually increase the numbers.
“We don’t think ridership will be there initially,” Watkins said. “For the first year of operations, because we’ll have to phase in things, we don’t intend to charge a fee. We’ll have to use a swipe card system and charge a nominal fee, but we don’t want to get into all that yet.”
This uncertainty about potential riders and not charging for the first year is a major reason why the town is trying to obtain all of the operational funding from grants.
However, the township has already worked out some routing after surveying the ridership of South Brunswick. There will be four routes: black, blue, red and green. Each route will be implemented one at a time, with the black route first.
SMART will not only be important for those going to work during rush hour, but also for senior citizens and the disabled.
Watkins said that four new buses would be used for the commuter traffic in the morning, starting at 6 a.m. or earlier. Then they will be put into service with the three or four buses already running for the senior citizens in the afternoon. Finally, the new buses will be used during the evening rush hours, up until about 8 p.m.
“This system is an all-encompassing system,” Watkins said. “It’s not just for commuter traffic. The idea of SMART is to make the senior buses, which are so successful, more reliable because we’ll have more drivers.”
Gambatese said it was important for Watkins to continue searching for grants. He said he had been contacted by Princeton University, who may be interested in talking to the town about a shuttle service bringing students and teachers to the school.
Councilman Charles Carley was, for one, pleased they were taking a slow approach.
“I’ve always been cautious about the commuter aspect of it,” Carley said. “I’m glad you’re moving in a considered way, one route at a time.”
Watkins added that he would like to start putting the SMART logo on the town’s current buses. The logo features its mascot, a smiling, happy bus named Smarty.