COTA Line Review: 44 Easton

this should run a LOT more frequently

what is this

COTA runs a set of 14 rush-hour routes, with 13 of them serving far-flung suburbs which do not get much service otherwise. The 44 is a bit of an exception. Its “suburban area” that it serves is the Easton Transit Center, likely the busiest in the system.

okay, where does it go

We started at the downtown COTA terminal, turning north onto High, making local stops. We turned east onto Spring Street (downtown-bound 44s use Long Street, a block south), continuing to make local stops.

As Spring Street leaves downtown, we merged off of it and onto I-71, then quickly off of I-71 and on to I-670. From there, we turned north onto I-270. We encountered very little traffic as we continued Easton-bound.

Merging off of I-270 at Morse Road, we turned west. Turning north onto Stelzer, we made two local stops and terminated at the Easton Transit Center. Everyone (about 10 people) got off at the transit center, none in between. It’s important to note that no one continued on to another bus route, instead going to the transit center's parking lot.

so what

As previously mentioned, this bus is an exception. It is a rush-hour only route that runs once a day between two transit centers. And yes — there are other ways to get from downtown to Easton at times when this doesn’t run — but they take much much longer than this express bus, probably in the ballpark of an hour on the local ones versus 20 minutes on the 44.

From my limited experience on the 7 and 9 (two local-stop-making downtown to Easton buses) about half of all riders between downtown and Easton are riding all the way from one to the other. This is why I believe that COTA should increase the frequency of this bus to at least every hour. It would make it much easier to get between the two heavily-used terminals, and there are many bus connections at either end to get people closer to their final destination.

final rating

Because of my thoughts on this route, it was hard to grade it on the rush-hour scale, but on the scale, it would fall at a 5/10. The proximity to the actual Easton mall is meh, with a 10 minute walk, but the frequency of once a day without a reverse commute bus really drags it down.

Just for fun, let’s rate it on the standard route scale as if it ran every hour. It would reach a 6/10, as the walkability of the route would be really good (and I would probably bump up the score by one because of its speed.) It will retain the 5/10 because that's the way the route is right now.