Jamie Revhahn, a Centro rider, middle, is pictured. Mike Greenlar | Central Current.

Transportation advocates have been pushing Centro to develop bus rapid transit in Syracuse for at least six years and it appears plans for BRT are on track, albeit with a few new tweaks. 

Steve Koegel, Centro’s vice president of communications and business planning, said the transportation authority still plans to launch BRT in mid-to-late 2026. 

Bus rapid transit is a bus service that operates on a fixed schedule with increased frequency. Advocates view BRT as one way to make more car-less travel — for work, school or leisure — possible in Onondaga County. 

The plans for BRT seemed to crystallize for Centro last year, about five years after the Syracuse Metropolitan Transportation Council, the region’s planning organization, released a study outlining the possibility of BRT. 

Micron’s 2022 announcement that it plans to come to Central New York seemed to reignite talk about BRT among elected officials.

Last year, Centro officials laid out some of their plans for BRT in a presentation to the Syracuse Common Council.  

In the year that’s followed some of those plans have changed. 

An additional route and smaller changes

As Central Current reported last week, Centro plans to add a third route to its BRT service. The route will run from the Centro hub near the corner of Adams and South Salina streets to the Valley Plaza.

It’s unclear whether that route will be part of the initial implementation or part of a later phase, Koegel said. The route will cost up to an extra $3 million, which will account for upgraded buses, upgraded bus stops and street enhancements to accommodate bus rapid transit, Koegel said. 

There are also several smaller changes to the BRT routes. 

New BRT routes Credit: Courtesy of Centro

Centro plans to overlay the routes from Onondaga Community College to Eastwood and the route from Destiny USA to Syracuse University when they reach downtown Syracuse. The planned routes overlap from the intersection of North Salina and Willow streets to the downtown hub. Koegel said Centro is still debating how it will stagger the buses at those stops. 

Centro believes those changes will reduce the number of stops and disruptions on other downtown streets while increasing the potential for transfers. 

“Salina Street has a little more potential for ridership throughout the day,” Koegel said. 

The route to Eastwood now includes Shop City Plaza as a stop. Centro was looking for an anchor for the Eastwood portion of the route. Some of the topography near Shop City Plaza will provide more challenges to buses but Centro is working on the logistics of running the route to Shop City, Koegel said.

The route to the North Side is no longer planned to stop at the Regional Transportation Center and will not fully circle Destiny USA. Koegel said Centro will maintain other routes that take riders there. Running service to the Regional Transportation Center and through streets around the mall would take an extra four to five minutes per route. There is still a planned stop at Destiny USA, though it is likely to fall at the intersection of Solar Street and Hiawatha Boulevard.  

Funding gap has closed but more bus drivers needed

Last year, Centro believed it could be up to $13 million short of what it needed to fund bus rapid transit.

But Koegel said Centro believes it now has all the funding it needs. 

“We have this funded,” Koegel said. 

A number of interrelated factors closed the funding gap. 

Since the start of the pandemic, Centro has not been able to fully reinstate its pre-pandemic service because it can’t hire enough bus drivers. 

“If 40 people walked in our front door today and said, ‘I want to drive a bus,’ we’d put them in a class and hire them on the spot,” Koegel said. 

Because its workforce numbers remain low and the organization can’t return to full service, a number of buses in Centro’s fleet have remained off the road. 

Those buses could be retrofitted to be bus rapid transit buses. Previously, Centro believed it would have to add to its fleet. 

“If we were to hire 50 bus operators, we would have to increase our fleet,” Koegel said. 

Centro still needs to hire bus drivers to make BRT a reality, however. For that to happen — without a return to full service — Centro still needs to add 20 to 25 bus drivers, according to Koegel.

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Chris Libonati is the managing editor of Central Current. He is a founding editorial member of the organization and was hired as Central Current's first reporter. He previously worked at the Syracuse Post-Standard...