MORGANTOWN — Mountain Line CEO Dave Bruffy said the ongoing pandemic has offered a new perspective on the value provided by Mountain Line and other transit systems.
While the numbers look to be turning around, Mountain Line is down 52% in ridership compared to this time last year.
But the demographics tell an interesting story, Bruffy explained, noting in particular that the number of senior and disabled riders has remained relatively steady throughout.
“We realized when we saw people in scrubs and fast-food uniforms and people in wheelchairs and seniors carrying grocery bags that it isn’t just about traffic congestion and providing an alternative to a personal auto. It went well beyond that. It really is critical infrastructure,” he told the Mountain Line Transit Authority Board during his 2021-22 budget presentation.
“We’ve learned some lessons about our ridership and what our service means to them,” he added.
The board approved a $7,095,082 spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year, more than half of which comes by way of CARES Act funding ($2.65 million) and the county-wide excess levy ($2.2 million). An additional $814,840 is included in the authority’s contract with WVU, and $365,500 will be provided by the City of Morgantown.
The budget approved by the board this time last year was $7,482,362, but is currently projected to come in just under $7.3 million when the fiscal year ends on June 30.
An $8,799,868 capital escrow budget was also approved for the coming year, including $3,023,189 in carryover and an initial expenditure of $2.5 million on new vehicles. The capital escrow budget also includes a number of capital projects, including $1.35 million for parking lot development and expansion at Mountain Line’s Westover hub.
Bruffy said Mountain Line wants to put more focus in the coming year on those individuals for whom bus service is crucial.
One of the ways he’s proposed doing that is by adopting a type of call-and-ride model — think Uber or Lyft — using smaller vehicles in places like Grafton Road or Mountain Heights.
This service would initially be added as a demonstration project in addition to the fixed-route service, which currently offers three rides daily in those locations, but not at times that typically allow trips to and from work.
In other news, the transit board asked Bruffy to reach out to Gov. Jim Justice’s office as well as the Monongalia County Health Department to float the idea of reducing distancing requirements on buses from 6 to 3 feet come July 1.
Bruffy noted that transit systems in West Virginia ran the gamut in their COVID responses, with some, like those in Charleston and Huntington, never implementing any distancing requirements while others shut down completely.
While Mountian Line has attempted to limit the impact to riders by providing route data online, the capacity requirements have resulted in riders being left standing at the bus stop.
The current distancing requirements reduce capacity on Mountain Line’s largest buses from 32 passengers to eight.
“But we are still leaving people standing and we’re not marketing our service because we know we have capacity concerns,” Bruffy said. “Until we know we have room to put additional people on the bus, it doesn’t make sense for us to tell people to ride the bus for anything other than essential trips.”
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