New Sisters-Bend bus route set

Beginning February 1, 2017, Cascades East Transit (CET) will institute a new bus route between Sisters and Bend.

The schedule has been developed to accommodate students and people employed in Bend. The bus will stop on the east end of Main Avenue near the library, and on the west end of Main before going to the stop between Ray's Food Place and the St. Charles clinic. There will be signage at each stop along the fixed route with time points at East Main and Ray's.

The proposed schedule can be found on the CET website (http://cascadeseast

transit.com). There will be no flag stops along the routes; riders must be at one of the fixed locations. All buses are ADA compliant. In Bend, riders will be taken to the bus hub at Hawthorn and 4th Street, where they will be able to transfer to inner-city buses for other points in Bend.

The Redmond-Sisters buses and the Tuesday bus within Sisters will remain unchanged. The Redmond-Sisters ridership grew from 2,689 in 2015 to 5,292 in 2016. The doubled ridership is attributed to 26 students who utilize the bus to the Heart of Oregon Corps on Highway 126 and George Cyrus Road, as well as students from Sisters who ride into Redmond to attend the Redmond Proficiency Academy.

The central bus hub in Redmond will be moving in the fall of 2017 to the area by Lowe's and Fred Meyer.

The Sisters City Council approved the biennial agreement between CET and Sisters.