ALBANY COUNTY — One of the regular riders of CDTA Bus Route 719, Marie Irving, is petitioning to have the route reinstated.

Irving, who lives near Guilderland High School, hasn’t been to Albany to work for 16 months because of the pandemic. She used to get on the bus at the Voorheesville library and travel for 45 minutes or an hour to the State Education Building in downtown Albany.

She works as an associate in teacher education. Her husband works in Albany, too. He has multiple sclerosis, she said, and “telecommutes from noon to the end of the day.”

The family has just one car. “He needed the car to keep his schedule,” she said.

Irving said she accepted that the bus wouldn’t be running during the shutdown meant to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

In March 2020, Jaime Watson, the Capital District Transportation Authority’s director of corporate communications, told The Enterprise that the normal weekday ridership of 60,000 was down between 66 and 75 percent. 

Watson was on vacation this week but still responded on Wednesday evening to an emailed list of Enterprise questions about Route 719, stating, “I’m not in a position to answer all of your questions. What I can tell you, we are assessing all former commuter and express routes, including the #719. Some may come back, some may partially come back, and some may never come back.

“As you know, a number of routes, including the #719 was suspended with the onset of the pandemic. We are now just getting to a point where we can assess the productivity of the routes and what makes sense to bring back. We will be doing this over the next several weeks. Once we have more details to share we will of course get that information out to the public.”

Irving said, when she heard from a CDTA staffer that Route 719 would not be reinstated, she thought that was unfair.

Her major reasons for petitioning to restore the route are environmental and for equity for rural and suburban areas. She believes the other regular riders miss the commute as much as she.

“You can’t compare this area with the city,” Irving told The Enterprise on Tuesday. “We’ll never have the numbers Albany, Schenectady, and Troy have.”

Even before the pandemic, she said, CDTA considered cutting the route. “Nellie Goutos in Altamont was instrumental in getting them to keep the line,” she said.

Goutos, who lives in Altamont, told The Enterprise that she used to ride the Altamont Express, 21X, and was involved in public forums when CDTA eliminated the express and combined Altamont, Voorheesville, and Bethlehem routes into Route 719.

The express was quicker, Goutos said, and she used to enjoy the community of riders as well as reading on the bus.

“I hope they keep it,” Goutos said of Route 719.

She and her husband host foreign exchange students, she said, and students without cars use the bus to get to The College of Saint Rose, Hudson Valley Community College, and the University at Albany.

In a week of petitioning, Irving had amassed 162 signatures as of Tuesday evening. She has a goal of getting 200 and submitting the petition to the CDTA by the end of July.

“I found a petition website and put it together,” she said of change.org. “I don’t have a big media presence.”

Her son, Irving said, has a background in broadcast journalism. “He helped me launch it via Instagram and Twitter,” she said.

Irving described some of the other regulars on Route 719: a woman who rides from Albany to work at the Stewart’s Shop in New Scotland, a man who works at Atlas Copco in Voorheesville, and people going to the Altamont Fair. The bus would stop along Route 156, she said, “to pick up an older gentleman, a regular” at an undesignated stop.

“A couple of people from the Hilltowns would pick up the bus by the gazebo in Altamont,” she said, and people from south Bethlehem and Ravena would use the park-and-ride to get the bus in Delmar.

Irving used to enjoy the commute, describing it as “a good transition to leave the work stuff behind.”

She described the “pleasant ride” and said that customers would often help new drivers find their way. “They would switch drivers a lot and they weren’t used to the country — we’re talking turkey and deer. It was an adventure,” she said.

A one-way ride cost her $1.50, Irving said. 

Like many riders, Irving used a fare card to pay ahead. She said CDTA has a no-refund policy and she was told, with Route 719 canceled, she could use her card to ride elsewhere.

But Irving said the regular commuters on Route 719 have no need to ride elsewhere; they want to ride to work and back.

“CDTA stopped Route 719 because of COVID and will not reinstate it until and unless we are loud and make our voices heard!” says Irving’s petition. “We want CDTA to bring Route 719 back because it is good for the planet and because we do not want CDTA to keep our money.”

Irving noted that CDTA has posted a “sustainable mission” and said of commuting to work on a bus, “It’s a good green thing to do.”