IN: Gary Public Transit Corporation rolling out expanded bus, bikeshare services this spring

The Gary Public Transit Corporation (GPTC) will be offering expanded bus and bikeshare services to customers this spring and summer.

Several of the GPTC's bus routes will begin operating on more frequent schedules while some will offer extended routes. GPTC planning, marketing and grants manager David Wright explained to attendees of a Monday community meeting at J's Breakfast Club in Gary that post-pandemic increases in ridership have spurred the changes.

The GPTC's R6 route, which currently runs north from downtown Hammond every even hour, and its R4 route, which runs south every odd hour, will both transition to hourly schedules in "late spring, early summer," Wright said.

Around the same time, the U.S. Route 30 Shuttle will add roughly one more mile to the western end of its route, allowing riders to access the Merrillville Branch of the Lake County Public Library.

The GPTC's Broadway Metro Express, which currently runs South from the Gary Metro Center at half hour intervals will be returning to its pre-pandemic 20-minute intervals. The GPTC will accomplish this by eliminating some stops along its route. Wright said that its frequency could conceivably be increased to every fifteen minutes.

Monday's meeting was the first of four opportunities for members of the public to address questions and comments on the upcoming changes to GPTC staff. Additional meetings will be held on March 26, March 31 and April 7.

In December, the GPTC arranged the purchase of nine new buses from the Michigan-based Midwest Bus Corporation. The transit corporation has so far received three of the new vehicles, Wright told The Times, and the remainder will be delivered at a rate of one to two per month through mid-2025.

The GPTC operates a fleet of roughly 20 buses, and the new ones will allow older vehicles to be transitioned into a contingency fleet. Wright said that GPTC customers can expect fewer delays and missing buses as a result.

With the weather warming, the GPTC is planning the return and expansion of a bikeshare program that first launched last spring. The Cycle219 previously made bicycles available for rent through a mobile app at four hubs in Gary's Miller Beach and Downtown areas, and this year the GPTC plans to add at least two more. Plans for hubs at University Park near Indiana University Northwest and another at Calumet College of St. Joseph in Whiting have been finalized, and others are under consideration.

In February, Wright told The Times that the program would be returning in March, but the rollout has since been pushed back to April. Wright attributed the delay to the need to "solidify" plans for bicycle maintenance.

The GPTC has entered into an agreement with the Miller Beach-based nonprofit Take Bike the Streets, which Wright said will be assisting with outreach efforts and some maintenance work. He added that the transit corporation plans to announce a deal for further maintenance services with a Gary bike shop once the details of the agreement are finalized.

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