Metro will move most of its buses off of Chapel Hill Mall property starting Sept. 25.CBL & Associates Management, operators of the mall, sent a letter to Metro on Aug. 19 demanding the move because of “extensive and continual damages your vehicles are causing to our asphalt surfaces.”The mall agreed to allow one route per hour on mall property.Metro Director Bob Pfaff said that will be Route 59, which he calls a circulator that also covers part of Tallmadge and elsewhere.For riders of Routes 7, 10, 12, 19, 23 and 34, their new bus stops will be on Buchholzer Boulevard, a location that currently offers them no covered shelter. Route 60, the Northcoast Express, will be moved to the Blue Deck on Second Avenue in Cuyahoga Falls across from the post office and Cuyahoga Falls Library starting Monday.Pfaff said as many as 800 bus patrons use the mall stop.“It’s a huge change,” he said. “A large portion of our service goes there and all our routes that go there have other routes attached to them that have to be changed too.”A call to CBL was sent by a secretary to voice mail and was not returned.Pfaff said the move from the mall parking lot to the nearby street is just temporary.“We’re currently looking for a solution now,” he said. “What we are going to do on the 25th is a temporary solution. We need to do something more permanent.”Asked if the move might be because of social reasons, Pfaff said: “I don’t know. The letter they sent tells us they are worried about continued damage to the driveway and the parking area and they want us to change operations to lighten the load so to speak.”The bus system is studying who owns the land adjacent to Buchholzer, whether Akron will permit curb cuts to allow wheelchairs to enter the buses and whether shelters can be built for riders.Many riders were unaware of the change Wednesday afternoon, even though a sign was posted at the shelter on mall property. They were not happy when told of the move, especially because it will mean longer walks in winter conditions.“I’ve always been in favor of the buses pulling up here how the system has been, so, no, I wouldn’t be pleased to have it any other way because it is more convenient for how I get around and stuff,” said Jenny Chapman, a bus rider and mall shopper. “I like going to the mall.”“I don’t think it’s fair really,” said Gloria Hudson, who uses the bus stop on the way to work. “They’ve been having it up here … people come up here, they shop here. Why would they do that?”Kevin McGee, spokesman for Summit County Developmental Disabilities said the agency has 330 people who use Metro to go to work and about 60 go through the Chapel Hill bus stop. Many of those people use wheelchairs, canes and walkers and are often confused by change, McGee said.The board plans to have an employee at the bus stop the week following Sept. 25 to help clients make the transition.“People with developmental disabilities are on their way to work to earn their paycheck and pay their taxes,” he said, “and they are shoppers, and they are employees, and we at Developmental Disabilities are constantly seeking to remove barriers to access to all the things that our community has to offer.”Not far away from the shelter is the chuckhole mall officials blame on buses.The letter to Metro said mall management accepts the bus system’s offer of $16,000 for pavement repairs while still insisting that the bus stop be moved. Pfaff said he thought that earlier agreement was the first step to allowing the buses to stay and said he was surprised to receive the letter on Aug. 19.“We had negotiations with the mall management late last year and thought we had an agreement and were trying to get it into writing. And here of late, we got notification that, ‘you know what, we want to change your operations in Chapel Hill and remove all of your service except for one route,’ ” he said.Dave Scott can be reached at 330-996-3577 or davescott@thebeaconjournal.com