The Chenango County Planning Department is spearheading a transportation survey that may bolster efforts to improve county-wide public transportation. (Sun File Photo)

NORWICH – The Chenango County Department of Planning is seeking public input to shape the future of county-wide transportation.

The department has launched a county-wide survey to gather data on county residents’ transportation options. The goal, say officials, is to use data in an updated coordinated transportation plan that would replace the 2019 plan currently used.

The coordinated plan provides an understanding of transportation in Chenango County and highlights room for improvements, new coordination opportunities, and paves the way to meet other transit needs.

Contemporary data allows the county to maintain state funding eligibility for highways, highway safety, and public transportation. In addition to the county’s transportation plan, information collected will also be tied into its developing 2050 vision plan.

“If people could take that survey, it would really help us,” said County Planning Director Shane Butler. “Not just for transportation, but for a lot of what we do in the future.”

Butler said a revised transportation plan would offer insights that would help county officials coordinate efforts with First Transit, the bussing company contracted with the county for public transportation services. The county’s private-public agreement with First Transit places the company in charge of coordinating routes while the county purchases and maintains the buses.

“It’s difficult because Chenango County is so rural. If we know where people are having trouble, we can tell First Transit where they need to update their routes to better correspond with the need,” said Butler.

Butler noted that his department’s currently mapping revised routes to share with First Transit. And survey results are helping in the process.

“One of the things we’ve seen so far is that people don’t know where to find the routes and how to read them. If we can generate a map, it would make it easier for people to see them,” he said.

“Just looking at the survey responses we have now, and the question ‘Do you live near public transit routes?’ Out of 70 responses, 31.4 percent said yes, 31.4 said no, and 37.1 said they don’t even know where the routes are,” explained county planner Matt Gladstone. “I think that’s a huge problem; nobody knows where to find information or where bus stops are in the city.”

Chenango County updates its transportation plan every four to five years, focusing primarily on five target populations: the aging, persons with disabilities, low income individuals, employed, and veterans. Public transportation in the county relies heavily on the services of First Transit as well as the GetThere mobility management program, part of the Rural Health Network of South Central New York, which provides services to Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, and Tioga counties.

The Chenango County Planning Department has provided a link to its transportation survey on its Facebook page as well as its website, www.co.chenango.ny.us/planning.

A link to the county’s current 2019 transportation plan is also available on the department’s website.