PHOENIX – Hoping to encourage people to lessen their car use, the city plans to send smaller buses into several communities to get residents to neighborhood hotspots, cut down on local traffic and tie into major bus lines.
Phoenix is expected to have eight neighborhood shuttles online by 2008.
The smaller circulator buses also will navigate neighborhood streets that regular buses can’t squeeze through and will make stops at regularly visited destinations.
"People will like it because it brings the circulators (buses) closer to homes," said Marie Chapple Camacho, a spokeswoman for Phoenix Public Transit Department.
Such neighborhood service is already available in Ahwatukee Foothills, where Phoenix launched its first neighborhood circulator service five years ago. Since then, the 40-mile route in the southeast Phoenix community has been a hit with residents.
In other cities, circulators are geared toward moving shoppers and visitors around downtown shops, restaurants and other businesses.
The Scottsdale Trolley is a bus that meanders through the city’s downtown art and shopping districts.
In Tempe, circulator buses zip around Arizona State University and make some stops in nearby neighborhoods.
Glendale‘s shuttles run through its historic downtown and weave into some neighborhood streets, but mostly stick to major thoroughfares.
