Nearly 100 VINE bus stops will be improved over the next four years, giving riders a place to sit down. Lucky riders at some stops will even get shelter from the sun and rain.

The Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency is embarking on its most ambitious bus stop improvement program in years, said Transit Manager Adriann Cardoso.

Using $622,000 in state and federal funds, the NCTPA will oversee the installation of more than 30 shelters at the most popular bus stops. Another 60 stops will get less expensive upgrades: poles with two seats attached.

Most of the money will be spent in Napa, the core of the VINE system, but improvements are also slated for American Canyon and Upvalley, officials said.

Currently, 79 of the VINE’s 380 stops have shelters with benches, while 88 others have benches only. At most stops, riders must stand without protection from the elements.

“There is a desperate need,” said Jack Wall, a regular bus rider who chairs the VINE’s Consumer Advisory Committee.

Wall rides Route 10 from Napa to his Upvalley job at a winery tasting room. During dark winter evenings, the stop on Highway 29 at Lodi Lane is so dark the bus driver occasionally roars by without stopping.

“Now I’m wise. I carry a flashlight in the winter,” Wall said. “A lot of people are doing that, but I don’t think it should be necessary.”

The NCTPA will experiment with solar-powered lights on poles marking rural stops, Cardoso said.

Napa and American Canyon will install the first bus stop improvements this summer. Napa has a $122,500 NCTPA grant for upgrades at Jefferson Street and Sierra Avenue, Foster Road at Imola Avenue, Foster Road at Clifford Street and Main and H streets.

Shelters, curb ramps and sidewalk extensions to make bus stops accessible to people with handicaps are expensive, said Mark Andrilla, a city engineer.

To make the stop at Jefferson and Sierra accessible, the city will install more than 200 feet of connecting sidewalk, he said.

American Canyon has a $27,500 grant for improvements to stops on Rio Del Mar just west of Highway 29, Donaldson Way north of Benton Way and a new stop on James Street north of Crawford Way, Cardoso said.

Over the next three years, nearly another half a million dollars will be spent on shelters, benches and pole seats, funded by $162,000 in NCTPA funds and a $310,000 grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Lifeline program.

VINE will collect ridership information on the most-used bus stops before the NCTPA decides where to spend the money. Stops will be evaluated for accessibility and safety by the Consumer Advisory Committee.

“If people are more comfortable waiting for the bus, they’re more likely to use the bus,” Cardoso said.

VINE ridership was up 6.8 percent in 2006, hitting 721,000, Cardoso said. Ridership was up another 5 percent during the first two months of this year before a fare increase took effect. It’s not known what effect the fare hike will have, she said.