“The mission of Ulster County Area Transit (UCAT) is to provide quality public transportation to the residents of Ulster County in a safe, reliable, and cost-effective manner.” – UCAT

“Puts bread on the table, brother. Benefits. Vacation. You know, you can’t complain.” – Felix Henriquez, UCAT bus driver 

Though not celebrated on its website, Facebook page, or in printed announcements posted at bus stops throughout its service area, Ulster County Area Transit this past weekend shifted its business model over from pay to play to free ride. Come one, come all.

On Saturday morning, October 1, the resolution introduced by Ulster County legislator Phil Erner and passed by the county’s governing body, kicked in countywide.

“If they already didn’t know that we were going to have free fares,” says Terri Schwartz, a bus driver of 20 years’ experience, “they’re very surprised. Some people are actually questioning why they’re free! We’re telling them that, you know, it’s free to them. Understand that the county is being compensated in other directions.”

UCAT presently advertises 14 fixed-routes of day-in day-out transportation service throughout the county, whose population is mostly spread out in pockets across its 1161 square miles. One must feel sympathy for the transit planner striving for equitable intra-county connectivity. 

The City of Kingston and some of the towns with the larger populations receive the most generous transportation options. Less populated communities find themselves with fewer options. Lloyd and Marlborough, with together over 20,000 residents, around twelve percent of the county population, get much more limited UCAT service. 

The KPL bus, from Kingston Plaza, is a 58-minute jaunt through Port Ewen and Highland to the Poughkeepsie train station. Via the UPL route starting at the Rosendale park-and-ride, New Paltz riders get to the Poughkeepsie station in half that time.

From Poughkeepsie, the northernmost terminus of the Metro North rail line, 80 miles south finds the intrepid rider pulling into Grand Central station in the center of New York City. Access to the most populated city in the United States is a great benefit. Wealth travels up and down the train tracks and then along the connecting bus lines before filtering out into the individual communities like water along the ever-branching root system of a cottonwood. 

In the main office at 1 Danny Circle in the Golden Hill complex is a map with every UCAT bus route in Ulster County. It’s hung on the lobby wall next to the receptionist’s window.

The Internet didn’t provide such a map. Here it was. Heartening.

But it was the route on the map down Route 9W past Highland and into Marlboro which gave the lie to it. Legislator Thomas Corcoran recently bemoaned the lack of UCAT service available to his constituents.

Bearing the imprint of former county executive Mike Hein’s name next to the county seal, the map on the wall was at least four years out of date. It listed routes and bus names which no longer existed.

Out-of-date information is the great sin of any transportation agency, but it is not the only one.

Starting from the Kingston Plaza on the Saturday EU line to Ellenville, nine stops along the way are indicated. Unless they are so well concealed as to escape detection along the 30-mile route, there is not a single sign advertising the location of a bus stop or providing route and time information to would-be bus riders. 

It was said by a Davenport Farm’s store clerk that there is a covered bench shelter on the SUNY Ulster campus a mile or so back from the Cottekill Road intersection with the Route 209, but that would be the exception to the rule.

Passing through Hurley, Stone Ridge, Accord and Kerhonkson, the bus appears to stop only at intersections along Route 209 or in the parking lots of franchise businesses like Stewart’s and Shoprite. At the Napanoch Walmart in Wawarsing are two curved-metal benches where passengers could conceivably wait — but no bus map posted, no schedule, no logo. The benches could just as well be meant for resting shoppers as for bus riders.

Perhaps the information regarding the whens and wherefores of bus routes is passed down by word of mouth generation after generation, mother to daughter, father to son.

And yet to climb onto a UCAT bus is to climb onto the future. The buses all have cameras and microphones. Some drivers are concerned that they could be monitored in real time from headquarters. 

Dystopian elements aside, every driver has a touchscreen tablet mounted within easy reach. This is important. After the fare boxes have been removed, tabulation of ridership will remain essential.

Felix Henriquez, bus driver on the KS route out to the Price Chopper in Saugerties, explains how the touchscreen tablet works.

“We already had a tablet system,” says Henriquez. “So even though fares are free, we’re still calculating who’s getting on. I put them in as regular or you know, I see that they’re seniors and I put them in as half-fare, just for count. [The tablet] keeps track of the number of passengers you do in a day. And the miles we drive. On this route, I probably do well over 120 miles in a day. At least that.”

The 38-vehicle fleet offer a variety of bus sizes available to ride, depending on the estimated ridership of the loop.

There is the full-sized Gillig kneeling bus which declares a 32-rider seated occupancy and can hiss out air from its adjustable suspension in order to lower its bottom step down to the curb.

There are the Turtletops and Cutaways, which seat nearly half the Gelig’s number.

The smallest bus in the fleet is an International model referred to in bus-driver slang as “a beer truck.”

All the buses have bike racks and are wheelchair-accessible.

Some of them are biodiesel. Three of the fleet are electric-powered, with nine more anticipated over the coming years.

The majority of the buses running out of Kingston Plaza last Saturday morning are the Cutaway types, so named because the bus body has been mounted on a van or medium-duty truck chassis, with the result that they look more like airport shuttles, and often have rows of individual seats facing forward. The wheelchair ramps on a cutaway unfold to the curb mechanically, like a segmented drawbridge.

All buses are equipped with GPS tracking to keep tabs on their locations at all times, in the process estimating their comings and goings more accurately. Another hallmark of the future.

When timetables are found printed and posted, a QR code is made available for scanning via cellphone. Gratefully, UCAT has an app for download which will track the real time location of any given bus from a cell phone or computer..

Anyone who has ever depended upon public transportation is only too aware of that unique purgatory which exists while one is waiting for a bus. The sense of valuable time slipping by while private automobiles zip by and accomplish scores of chores and errands more efficiently.

If one knows the intervals between the arrivals of busses one can calculate the outside limit of how much time remains until the next, and so at least be occupied counting down the minutes. Or better yet, not even showing up until most convenient.

Timetables were posted for each and every bus line at the Kingston Plaza waiting area, allowing potential riders to improvise with or without access to the Internet. Four beefy wooden-slat benches held up with aggregate concrete frames await the weary rider. Outdoor speakers pipe out easy-listening love songs like Nicolette Larsen’s “It’s going to take a lotta love,” and Air Supply’s “I’m all out of love.” In a last-century touch, ashtrays were provided. 

Even here, in the aortic valve of the steadily beating UCAT heart during the lead-up to the morning of October 1, official fanfare announcing the change to fare-less bus rides countywide was nowhere to be found.

Nor was there confetti scattered across the UCAT Facebook page, where the last message posted by the agency was dated September 19.

Interested riders scanning the UCAT webpage likewise found nothing to indicate the monumental change that was coming. Rather, they encountered a large-font disclaimer of sorts put out by the transit service, blaming delays and missed service on labor shortages. 

In a time when government agencies hire public-relations mouthpieces to trumpet their every improvement, the silence from UCAT regarding the dramatic change in its service was deafening.

Scrolling briefly down the UCAT’s previous posts on its Facebook page, this lack of engagement by UCAT appears typical. One can read the litany of unanswered complaints, the comments of disgruntled riders. Cancellation warnings issued too late. Phone calls never picked up. Incorrect information posted by bots.

An August 17 comment posted touting the likely change to free fares for all riders coming in October came from an attentive citizen rather than the agency itself.

Aside from a cancellation or delay alert, the last comment posted by UCAT was on Memorial Day, a two-sentence history lesson noting that this was “a day of ceremonies and speeches,” and that “throughout America today we honor the fallen of our wars.” The transit authority further “recalled their valor and their sacrifices” and remembered “they gave their lives so that others might live.” 

This comment was posted the day after the agency announced that there would be no service on Monday, May 30, in observance of Memorial Day. Veterans looking to ride their buses to Memorial Day celebrations were out of luck.

How UCAT service can stay afloat without worrying itself with its former revenue stream is revealing.  

According to the 2022 Ulster County adopted budget, $290,000 is derived from departmental income while the lion’s share, $4.8 million, will come from federal (57.5 percent) and state (29.8 percent) aid, providing 87.3 percent of the annual revenues for Ulster County Area Transit. The funding to replace the paying customers from October 1 is a small item in a $350-million budget.

According to the 2022 county capital improvement program, $20.6 million was earmarked for replacing UCAT buses between January 2022 and December 2027. When the UCAT buses reach the end of their useful lives is determined by their ability to remain safe and functional according to FTA regulations.

Just under half that capital money is to be provided from federal and state funds ($10.2 million), leaving the county a bill for $10.4 million over five years.

Another $4.5 million will come from state DOT MEP (New York State Department of Transportation Modernization and Enhancement) funds. Upgrades made to UCAT buses will include replacement security cameras, purchase of electric support vehicles, and support equipment for the bus maintenance facility. Some $7.9 million will go towards electric-bus-charging infrastructure and another $300,000 for rooftop solar.

Driving the Z route out to Woodstock, driver Terri Schwartz, describes her Gelig.

“It seats 32, and you can have about 30 standees,” Schwartz says. “This one is a biodiesel, which is ultra-low sulfur, so there’s less contaminants put out in the air. The electric buses are a great concept. But some of the routes, they just can’t handle the terrain.”

Driving along Route 28 up to Belleayre Mountain presents a persistent problem for electric buses.

“It’s a big hill going up there,” says Schwarz. “The electric bus that we purchased went up there and came back once — and it was down 40 percent. So it’s just not feasible for every single run. Your inner city runs, the yellow, the red, the blue, just a bunch of circles in the inner city of Kingston. You’re golden with that. They’ll run all day.”

While $13.5 million has been dedicated to construction of a new storage garage, there is as yet no word about the creation of an ubiquitous signage plan. This may seem a minor complaint, but the amount of federal and state aid is predicated on ridership. The more riders and bus drivers clock on their touch pads, the more money the county gets to run the operation. Announce it and they will come.

Most people agree that access to hospitals, schools, jobs and grocery stores should be the primary mission of public transportation. The emphasis should be on providing access with the least amount of unnecessary expenditure to what is essential. Health benefits — mental, emotional and physical — come with access to all things natural.

As it operates presently on its run out to Pine Hill, the Z route bus starting in Kingston takes the rider into Woodstock, through Olive along the Ashokan Reservoir, past Mt. Tremper in Shandaken, along the border of 47,500 acres of the Slide Mountain wilderness inside of which are concealed waterfalls, rivers, wild flora and fauna of all descriptions. Upon request, the Z bus will run out past Pine Hill to Belleayre Mountain as well. 

Almost anywhere along the route would be fine for a picnic or a daytrip. The more people ride, the more money the county gets. Imagine busloads of city and town-bound schoolchildren taken out to study in the classroom of nature.

Like broadband access to the Internet, public transportation has implications for economic opportunity and stability. Both involve a discussion of connectivity, after all.

The creation of a bus line that runs from Ellenville through the southernmost reaches of the county, passing directly through Wallkill, Plattekill and Marlborough on the way to Highland, would be a way to increase ridership, connect the towns, and change the calculus of how money enters those towns. The car-challenged class will have as much access as those who drive their own cars.

The Kingston-Ellenville route, with its lack of clear bus stops, is positioned to be a major financial corridor in the coming years. The creation of a cannabis cultivation, processing, packaging and distribution facility in Wawarsing to the south, announced by Cresco Labs, has projected job creation of 350 new full-time jobs. Pair this with the revitalization of iPark87 in the Town of Ulster by National Resources, a development firm promising the creation of over a thousand jobs over the coming years. One can begin to imagine the tide of labor flowing back and forth along the Route 209 corridor twice a day — like the Hudson River itself.

For increased ridership, considerable environmental benefits, and reduced traffic throughout the Hudson Valley and beyond, the fare-less model might just be the way to do it.

Deconstructionist. Partisan of Kazantzakis. rokoszmost@gmail.com

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