Lemont Will Continue to Have Fixed-Route Bus Service Along with New CATAGo Zone

Fixed-route bus service through Lemont will continue after all, albeit at a reduced schedule.

The Centre Area Transportation Authority launched a pilot CATAGo on-demand microstransit zone serving Lemont and Houserville on July 1 and initially planned to eliminate Lemont from the College Connector fixed-route bus line with the start of the fall service schedule in August.

On Thursday, however, CATA announced that in addition to the new CATAGo zone, the College Connector will continue to serve Lemont until 8 p.m. Monday through Friday at a frequency of 54 minutes. It currently operates in Lemont seven days a week until after 11 p.m. at a frequency of 30 minutes.

The new CATAGo zone includes Lemont and Houserville, which had lacked public transportation for years, along with part of Branch Road, the Nittany Mall, Centre Care and Mount Nittany Medical Center. It offers destination points at Scenery Park and the Weis Markets, Giant and CVS on South Atherton Street, all off which have connections to the Atherton Connector fixed route.

CATAGo in the Houserville-Lemont zone operates from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday with an average wait time of 8 to 10 minutes for the on-demand, curb-to-curb service, according to CATA. There is no service on Sunday.

“This is the first new zone we’ve introduced in a couple of years,” Derek Sherman, CATA’s ADA and on-demand programs coordinator, said at a public hearing in June. “We’re excited about this zone.”

Not everyone was excited about the planned changes though.

With the introduction of CATAGo, eliminating Lemont from the College Connector would have allowed a more direct and efficient route between downtown State College and the Nittany Mall area, Marin Yang, CATA transportation planner, said at the hearing.

Several residents and business owners said they were concerned CATAGo would not provide the level of service needed by people who live or work in Lemont.

“The proposed ‘on demand’ service comes nowhere near replacing regular bus service,” the owners of Cafe Lemont wrote in a June 20 Facebook post. “We plead with you to not end our lifeline to the rest of the community.”

Hugh Mose, the retired CATA general manager and current State College Transportation Commission chair, who emphasized he was speaking as a private citizen, also questioned why fixed-route service would end after College Township recently installed new bus stops in Lemont as part of its Pike Street streetscape project.

“That makes my head explode,” Mose said. “A lot of money has just been spent to enhance the bus stops in the core of Lemont and now they are going to go unused… If that’s the case, that’s something that should be seriously reconsidered.”

Reconsidered it was, and those bus stops will continue to see use.

For bus schedules and details on CATAGo zones and booking trips, visit catabus.com .

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