By: Diane Benjamin
I’ve done numerous stories about Connect Transit buses destroying the infrastructure at the north west corner of Portillos. It is impossible for the huge buses to make that turn without running over the curb and sidewalk. That of course crushes the concrete. The corner has been fixed but the bus route was never changed so the destruction continues.
This is what the corner looked like shortly after Portillos opened, a bus had quickly destroyed it. That was in 2017.
The video below was filmed yesterday by Doug Fansler, a Normal resident who is tired of paying for repairs over and over just to have a bus destroy it.
If you thought government worked for you, this is proof it doesn’t. Normal appoints representatives to the Connect Transit Board. Since the bus route hasn’t been changed to avoid this corner, your Normal government doesn’t care how many times taxpayers have to pay to fix it. Is changing the route too difficult? Is a turn lane too difficult to install so buses can navigate it? It’s only been 4 years, too busy to solve an eyesore?
Connect Transit runs huge empty buses that can’t navigate neighborhoods where routes used to exist. The consultant who created the route had no common sense. Failure by the Town of Normal to find a permanent fix sends an obvious message: Our agenda is more important than your repair costs.
What a waste. I’m thinking they could get all the riders of most busses on the back of a motorcycle and save a lot of damage and cost. I saw a nice new and huge bus the other day with 2 passengers in it. One was a policeman. Going down its Hershey route I passed 13 stops with a grand total of 1 person waiting for a ride.
It is a huge waste of money. Biden’s infrastructure plan provides even more money for transit! This fleece is across the country.
Mass transit is dumb. We don’t have a Mass need. We need smart transit not stupid transit.
The demonrats destruction of America marches on.
This bus stop and inability to turn the corner here also creates a huge traffic and safety problem. On several occasions when I have gone to Portillos for lunch, trying to exit onto Landmark is nearly impossible when a bus is there. And not only is there 1 bus, but 2. Why are there 2 buses at the same place at the same time? Also if there is a car trying to turn on to Landmark the bus can’t make the turn onto Parkway Plaza, so they sit blocking the road and making it difficult to see and be able to make a left onto Landmark from Portillo’s parking lot. Giant mess.
It looks like one of the buses originates from uptown (Normal) and the other originates from downtown (Bloomington) to take people to Walmart. .
Neither requires being on Landmark Drive. If Kroger’s is involved, go down to to Ft. Jesse Rd instead.
Don’t worry, once the climate change cultists get their way and either make gas too expensive for most of us peeons to afford, or outlaw gas and diesel vehicles for us peeons, those big buses will be full.
The massive electric buses are scheduled to arrive soon…2 tons of extra weight. The good news is, the electric buses don’t have the “range” to run the routes regularly to north Normal so they will be used around ISU and as shuttles between Uptown Normal and Downtown Bloomington.