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Tag: Mary Poole

  • Major changes to SacRT bus schedules to affect Citrus Heights, region

    SacRT serves the Sacramento region, including Citrus Heights, with public transit services. // Image courtesy, SacRT

    By Thomas J. Sullivan–
    Sacramento Regional Transit (SacRT) will roll out a new bus service schedule on Sept. 8, featuring major service changes to almost every bus route. Some early morning services are be dropped due to low ridership, and new evening services are being added.

    Mary Poole, operations manager for the City of Citrus Heights General Services Department, presented an overview of the new SacRT transit schedule at the city’s Planning Commission meeting on June 12. She said the new schedule includes better frequency, longer service hours on some routes, and more weekend service throughout the system, as some duplicative routes are being discontinued.

    Route 24
    SacRT Route 24 will be discontinued due to low ridership and will be covered by SmartRT Ride microtransit. The existing route included stops at Main Avenue and Hazel Avenue, Greenback Lane and Hazel Avenue, with a connection to the Folsom Stage Line Transit Center, Poole said.

    Riders affected by the service change have an option to use Sacramento Rapid Transit’s SmaRT Ride program which is similar to other ride-share services where customers can use a smartphone app or call to request a bus to pick them up and drop them off wherever they wish to travel within the SacRT’s service boundaries, Poole said. Trip requests must be made on the same day, and wait times for service are subject to vehicle availability and demand.

    Route 1
    SacRT Route 1, providing round-trip service from Sunrise Mall to Watt/I-80, is one of the its top performers, Poole said.

    Early morning departures at 5:14 and 5:44 a.m. will be dropped. New trips from Sunrise Mall at 6:29, 6:59, and 7:29 p.m. and from Watt/I-80 at 7:04, 7:34, 8:04 and 8:34 p.m. will be added.

    Weekend trips on SacRT Route 1 from Watt/I-80 to Sunrise Mall at 5:06, 5:36 and 6:06 a.m. will also be dropped. A Sunday trip leaving Sunrise Mall at 9:11 p.m. to Watt/I-80 will be added. Sunday and holiday trips leaving Watt/I-80 for Sunrise Mall will shift from 8:36 p.m. to 9:06 p.m.

    Route 25
    A new Route 25-Marconi replaces Route 24. Round trip service on Madison Avenue to Sunrise Mall will be discontinued on Sept. 8. The new SacRT Route 25-Marconi will go from Mercy San Jan Hospital on Coyle Avenue, north on Dewey Drive, continuing onto Van Maren Lane, north on Auburn Blvd. to Louis/Orlando transit center. Weekend service will run every 30 minutes from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. and hourly service from approximately 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

    The new schedule increases Saturday frequency to 45 minutes until 8 p.m. and adds night service at 60-minute frequency until approximately 10 p.m. Sunday and Holiday service on the new route will run every hour from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

    Route 21
    SacRT Route 21 will drop weekday early morning service at 4:41 a.m., 5:11 a.m. and 5:41 a.m. leaving from Sunrise Mall. Buses will operate every 45 minutes on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and every hour until 10 p.m. An early morning Saturday/Sunday trip beginning from Sunrise Mall at 6:12 a.m. will also be dropped.

    Routes 95/93
    Due to low ridership, former SacRT Route 95 will be combined with Route 93. The new Route 93-Hillsdale bus route will reroute from Elkhorn Blvd., Greenback Lane, and Auburn Blvd. to Louis/Orlando via Andrea Blvd., Tupelo Blvd., Antelope Road, and Auburn Blvd., effective Sept. 8. Saturday bus service frequency will be increased to every 45 minutes. Four Saturday/Sunday trips on the new SacRT Route 95 line will begin at SacRT’s Louis/Orlando transit center, beginning at 7:35 a.m. and 7:35 p.m., and beginning at Watt/I-80 around 7:14 p.m. and 8:14 p.m.

    Route 193
    SacRT Route 193, a popular commuter route providing early morning service from the Louis/Orlando Transit Center to Watt Avenue and I-80 Light Rail, with connections to Roseville and Placer County Transit, will be re-designated Route 103. There will be no change in service frequency.

    Riders are urged to visit sacrt.com/sacrtforward to view the new bus routes. The web site also includes maps and descriptions of the new bus routes. Updated schedules will be printed and available online this summer.

  • Citrus Heights: grant funds helped sterilize 2300 cats in city

    Updated March 16, 6:40 p.m.–
    In an effort to help manage the area’s outdoor cat population, the City reported a total of 2,303 cats were spayed or neutered in Citrus Heights during a recent 29-month period — primarily aided by a grant from PetSmart Charities.

    The free “Trap-Neuter-Return” program was implemented in September 2013, with funding from a $127,950 PetSmart grant that expired at the end of January this year, according to City Operations Manager Mary Poole. She said the grant allowed for residents to bring in feral, stray, or personal cats for free surgery and rabies vaccinations, in order to help reduce “nuisance issues” associated with unaltered cats.

    [Also on The Sentinel: Cat adoption events seek homes for local kitties each weekend ]

    Poole called the program a “great success” and said she’s hopeful additional funds can be secured in the future. She said the grant was initially set up as a two-year program, but a five-month extension was given due to “very high demand,” and grant funds still being left over.

    Poole said unaltered cats in the city has led to “all kinds of problems,” including spraying, “caterwauling,” and gardens being used for litter boxes. She said altering cats helps limit the impact and reduce overpopulation in animal shelters, which she said is “an incredibly expensive way to handle cats.”

    Asked how much impact the grant made on reducing nuisance calls, Poole said there’s still a high number of reports related to cats.

    “We still have a lot of areas where we get reports about feral cat colonies where cats have not been altered,” said Poole. “They’re not as frequent as they used to be, but they’re still there, and our hope is to obtain future grant funding so we have options for these areas.”

    How the program worked

    According to PetSmart Charities’ website, the nonprofit offers spay and neuter grants to communities around the United States to help manage free-roaming cat populations and reduce the need for euthanizing animals.

    To take part in the program, local residents needed to apply for a sterilization voucher online from the Sacramento Area Animal Coalition or River City Cat Rescue, bring the cat in to a local veterinary hospital for surgery and vaccination, and then return the cat to the same area it was trapped in. Feral cats also had the tip of their ear removed while under anesthesia to visually indicate they had been sterilized.
    A donation of cages from Unleashed by Petco enabled the City to provide rental traps for free, with a $50 refundable deposit. Donations of time, support, and discounted vet fees, were also provided by All About Pets, according to Poole. [follow text="Get local news:"] Grant funding allowed for up to $22,000 to cover the cost of an animal services officer to help with trapping, but Poole said those funds were "essentially eaten up just over the first year," and the City covered the cost for the remainder of the program. The remaining grant funds paid for vet costs associated with alterations and vaccinations. Asked for comment at the start of the program in 2014, resident Margaret Cleek told The Sentinel she favored the "Trap-Neuter-Return" approach as the best way to humanely manage and stabilize outdoor cat populations. Cleek said she believes euthanizing cats can lead to a vacuum in the feline population of an area, which can then attract more cats that aren't spayed or neutered, and actually create more of a problem. While the ethics of sterilizing versus euthanizing feral cats are debated, Poole said from a statistics standpoint the euthanize approach to nuisance cats "didn't do anything to decrease the population." What's next Although free sterilizations are no longer offered through the PetSmart grant, Sacramento and Auburn-based Animal Spay and Neuter Clinics are now offering free cat sterilization for all cats in Sacramento County. For more information, see: www.animalspayneuter.com. *Note: A prior version of this story reported a higher number of cats sterilized, based on a figure the City's General Services Department says it mistakenly provided. 2,303 cats is the correct number.