A new Interstate 81 isn’t the only change in central New York’s transportation system on the horizon. The Syracuse Metropolitan Area Regional Transportation Council has started looking at the feasibility of light rail or bus rapid transit along certain corridors in Syracuse.
Council Director Jim D’Agostino says the Syracuse Metropolitan Area Regional Transit Study, or SMART, actually grew out of the Interstate 81 discussion.
“We did a preliminary analysis as part of the 81 studies a couple of years ago that said, ‘Let’s take a look at our transit system, let’s take a look at what we can do,’” said D’Agostino. “And we identified a couple of corridors that are key for enhanced transit services.”
Those corridors roughly make an X across Syracuse, one stretching from Onondaga Community College to James Street, the other from Destiny USA to Syracuse University. And these enhanced transit services, be they light rail or bus rapid transit, would travel more quickly with fewer stops, kind of like a trolly.
D’Agostino says building a light rail system would mean building new tracks, and would be more expensive than the bus option, although that could also mean infrastructure changes according to Centro CEO Rick Lee.
“The notion of BRT [bus rapid transit]can span from having buses dedicated to the lane to having limited stops to actually installing curb cuts and other infrastructure changes that would allow faster transit along the corridor.”
D’Agostino expects it’ll take a couple of years before they come up a final report that includes cost estimates. In the meantime are asking residents to weigh in on their proposal.