MARSHALL – How about a bus stop at the Marshall-Lyon County Library, community members are asking the Community Transit system.

Christine Bean of Marshall is a regular library and city transit user and has circulated a petition in which she has compiled 100 signatures of people agreeing that adding a library stop to the Red Route would be beneficial to the community.

“I’ve received a lot of positive feedback,” Bean said. “People don’t understand why there isn’t a stop at the library.”

Cathleen Amick, the Marshall transit director, said there used to be a regular stop at the library before it moved to C Street and Saratoga Street. She said there is a stop at the YMCA, which is a block away from the library. In addition, people can always call the Community Transit and schedule a ride directly to the library.

Bean said riding on an established route costs $1 and scheduling a ride costs $2 to get to a particular destination.

In addition, “I’ve walked from the YMCA before, but I have asthma and can’t walk in this kind of cold weather,” Bean said.

She said she has seen “less than a handful” of people go to the YMCA by bus and the bus waits there for “five, sometimes seven or eight minutes. It could go to the library during that time.”

Amick said it isn’t easy to change an established route.

“We have two very successful routes – the Red and Blue,” Amick said. “It takes a long time to establish a route.”

Amick said bus riders value the regular pattern and timeliness of a route, so a route can’t be changed quickly or without examining if an additional stop is needed and if needed, what would be the impact to the route?

“It’s time-consuming and expensive (to change a route),” she said. New bus schedules would have to be printed up to reflect the changes.

Amick said a passenger survey has been made available to riders. She will be looking at the results of the survey. She will also distribute a survey to library patrons for their input as well.

“We’ll do that sometime in February,” she said.

Amick said she received the petition and will take it into consideration. She said she appreciates hearing from riders who have ideas on how to improve the transit system.

“We definitely seek community input,” Amick said. “We’ll continue to look into this. The next step is to analyze all the information and present it to the Marshall transit committee.”

Amick said transit authorities will discuss whether it is feasible to adjust the Red Route or the Blue Route or “consider other ways of getting to the library.”