NY: CDTA touts $1.1 million investment, better on-time service

The Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) has made a significant technological investment of over $1.1 million for its first year of operation in Warren County, while simultaneously improving on-time performance by 10%, officials say.

CDTA absorbed routes in Glens Falls and Warren County after it replaced the Greater Glens Falls Transit system in January 2024. During that span, the authority has collected ridership data, evaluated how the system is actually being used across the city and surrounding areas, and upgraded its Queensbury facility infrastructure.

“What we did throughout the rest of the first year is we installed a lot of technology. We installed radios, terminals, fareboxes, passenger information systems, cameras, and passenger counters,” said Christopher Desany, chief operating officer at CDTA, of the $1.1 million investment. "None of this [tech] really existed on the existing fleet and GGFT, which severely hampered their ability to be flexible and dynamic with providing service, and it really hampered their ability to collect data about ridership trends."

CDTA's new P25 mobile radio enables communication between operators despite spotty coverage in parts of Warren County; data terminals provide turn-by-turn directions; fareboxes actively and accurately collect revenue; and passenger information systems collect arrival information, origin-destination information, and safety alerts.

“We're very focused on performance-driven management of these services, so we use the data to determine often where the demand is, where the need is, and then we fold in all the additional intangibles — there’s a people aspect, there's an equity aspect, and there's a geographic span,” Desany continued.

Michael Williams, director of planning at CDTA, added, "Now that we have the technology on our buses to mass robust ridership and service data, we're able to make intelligent planning decisions about where and when the service operates."

A substantial portion of the area's bus ridership is based along the Route 9 corridor from downtown Glens Falls to Exit 19, and then up to Lake George, as well as the Route 4 corridor between downtown Glens Falls, Hudson Falls, and Fort Edward. Based on these findings, CDTA plans to make changes to the routes and service levels beginning in late August.

"We are at a high level going to be increasing service on the routes with the highest productivity," Williams said. "We measure productivity in riders per hour. When I talk about increasing the service level, I'm talking about frequency and span. Frequency is how frequently the trips on the bus run — once every half hour, once every hour, so on. Whereas span refers to when a route is an obligation, so how early in the morning it runs, how late at night it runs, and whether it runs on weekdays."

"At the same time that we're increasing service on the routes with the highest productivity, we are going to decrease service on the routes with the lowest productivity, and the reason for that is that we need to make this a resource-neutral change that doesn't increase the total amount of buses, drivers, and hours that we operate," Williams continued.

In gaining public input from 2024 and 2025, CDTA also learned that customers are prioritizing requests like more frequent service overall, later night service, and Sunday service, while also looking for standard safety and security on buses, safety and security at shelters and bus stops, and on-time performance. "We have to ask the customer what's important to them. Safety and security is of paramount importance for us," Desany said. "Safety and security of our operators, but of course, the public on those vehicles as well. Every bus is equipped with anywhere between eight to 14 cameras."

Additionally, CDTA is exploring the use of its FLEX On Demand micro transit service for Glens Falls and areas north. FLEX is the authority's point-to-point model offering shorter wait times and faster drop-offs. "The way [FLEX] works is we provide an Uber-Lyft-like service within a designated area between bus stops and points within that area, and people are allowed to book rides for an essentially on-demand connection between any two points within that area, and we found that that works better than fixed route areas that struggle to produce consistent ridership," Williams explained.

The FLEX service may be implemented for harder-to-reach locations in the northernmost parts of Warren County, like North Creek, where residents and officials have been clamoring for better public transportation that would connect the North Country to popular tourist destinations in Lake George and Saratoga. "We are somewhat limited in our ability to expand FLEX right now, just because of the number of vehicles that are available, but we are getting more," Williams told the Warren County Board of Supervisors in a meeting on Tuesday. "We're not exactly sure how we would deploy FLEX service just yet, but it is something that's on our radar, and we'll have a better idea of where FLEX service might work once we implement the service changes in late August."

CDTA Chief Executive Officer Frank Annicaro also explained the importance of an open dialogue between the authority and local leaders about economic development in the region. "We need to be part of your economic development conversations. We can bring a lot to that table," Annicaro explained. "We're able to engage with the to-be businesses or the institutions who are now developing to get these [ridership] partnerships, and it gives us the long lead time to be able to get our transportation services there. Transit-oriented development is essential, even in rural areas."

© 2026 The Post Star (Glens Falls, N.Y.).
Visit www.poststar.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.