Riders of Omaha\u2019s public transit system would have access to larger buses under a bill heard by the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee Jan. 19.<\/p>\n
LB735, introduced by Henderson Sen. Curt Friesen, would increase the current 40-foot limit for an articulated bus operated by a transit authority to 65 feet. Friesen said the bill would allow Omaha\u2014the recent recipient of grant funding\u2014to upgrade to rapid transit buses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Omaha metro area has an excellent opportunity to embrace the next generation of public transportation,\u201d he said. \u201cBus rapid transit provides a multitude of public benefits including improved transportation options and faster service with limited stops.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curt Simon, executive director of Metro Transit in Omaha, supported the bill. He said that the longer articulated buses would double passenger capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe expanded articulated bus would provide greater capacity and internal bicycle storage for our passengers,\u201d Simon said. \u201c[The change to rapid transit] represents the most significant transit investment in our community in over 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one testified in opposition to the bill and the committee took no immediate action on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Riders of Omaha\u2019s public transit system would have access to larger buses under a bill heard by the Transportation and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22],"tags":[145],"class_list":["post-18039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transportation-and-telecommunications","tag-sen-curt-friesen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18040,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039\/revisions\/18040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}