PORT ANGELES — Clallam Transit is rolling out a set of service changes that will affect eight bus routes beginning March 20.
The changes were designed to improve system efficiency while meeting the needs of customers, said Wendy Clark-Getzin, Clallam Transit general manager.
Notably, Clallam Transit is adding early morning and evening weekday trips for west Port Angeles and Cherry Hill and a weekday evening run for the No. 14 Forks commuter.
Trips are being added for the Port Angeles-Joyce commute, the Golf Course Road/Melody Lane neighborhood in Port Angeles and within the city of Forks.
Service between Forks and La Push, which also is provided by the Quileute tribe, is being eliminated on weekdays and expanded Saturdays.
The new schedule is available on the Clallam Transit website, www.clallamtransit.com.
“All of these changes together, it’s almost a net zero,” said Steve Hopkins, Clallam Transit operations manager.
“It’s aimed at increasing the number of people per trip, of the riders per trip, so that we get more usage out of the system.”
The new schedule was tailored to an upcoming project to rehabilitate a 12-mile section of U.S. Highway 101 at Lake Crescent.
The three-year National Park Service and Federal Highway Administration project, which is scheduled to commence in late April, will cause half-hour delays during regular working hours.
“We had to recognize that we were going to be confronted with a lot of additional costs if we didn’t respond readily to the Lake Crescent construction project,” Clark-Getzin said in a Friday interview.
Clallam Transit’s new schedule reduces the number of weekday trips for the No. 14 Forks commuter from nine to eight and spreads out the departure times to avoid having multiple buses stuck in the same closure.
“Currently, we have a schedule where if we hit a closure, another bus will catch up with the other bus that’s in front of it and they’ll chase each other then for the whole remainder of the route in both directions,” Hopkins said.
“That’s not efficient. So we redesigned the schedule in a way where there’s one bus going in each direction essentially every two hours and with enough recovery time where if it does get caught in one of the 30-minute closures, it shouldn’t impact the next trip.”
The last bus to Forks now leaves the Port Angeles Gateway Transit Center at 5 p.m. weekdays.
Beginning March 20, the last bus to Forks will leave downtown Port Angeles at 7:10 p.m.
“By this extra 7 o’clock trip, we’re hopeful that now people can have a commute option and open up some job opportunities here in PA for people that might live in Forks,” Hopkins said.
The new schedule maintains connections to the No. 16 bus to Clallam Bay.
In Port Angeles, Clallam Transit is adding three early morning weekday trips (5:12 a.m., 5:42 a.m., 6:42 a.m.) and three evening weekday trips (7:42 p.m., 9:12 p.m., 10:12 p.m.) for the No. 24 Cherry Hill bus.
“We’re hoping that really gives people a chance to do some shopping after work or go to dinner downtown or to just make it easier for commuters as well,” Hopkins said.
One early morning weekday trip (6:35 a.m.) and one evening weekday trip (8:05 p.m.) is being added for the No. 26 bus through west Port Angeles.
The additions were designed to eliminate “deadhead” trips where an out-of-service bus runs empty from the Clallam Transit yard at 830 W. Lauridsen Blvd. to The Gateway center, Hopkins said.
“One challenge with our service right now is that here in town, it doesn’t start early enough for many people who are trying to commute to work,” Hopkins added.
“And so what we’ve tried to do is to convert what are known as deadhead trips … into in-service trips.”
The No. 30 Port Angeles-Sequim commuter, the system’s most popular fixed route, will get two additional trips in each direction on weekday mornings to create a 30-minute frequency throughout the day.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
