MORGANTOWN — Between Sept. 1, 2021 and Nov. 30, 2024, every person who boarded the bus on Mountain Line’s Don Knotts route rode for free.
It was a blanket effort from Morgantown, Monongalia County and Mountain Line to ensure anyone needing to get from downtown to the social services in Hazel’s House of Hope could do so without charge.
Under that plan, ridership exploded, with average monthly rides jumping from 1,867 in 2021 to 3,812 in 2022 to more than 7,000 in 2023 and 2024.
Mountain Line leadership argued it was completely inefficient and getting out of control.
So, on Dec. 1, 2024 Mountain Line ended free ridership on its Don Knotts line and partnered with the city and county to implement a pair of pass programs aimed specifically at getting those in need to and from social service agencies.
During the transit authority’s January meeting, Mountain Line CEO Maria Smith broke down the data collected during the first month under the new system.
On the front end, the city purchases single-use Community Access Passes at a discounted rate of 67 cents each – down from the normal 75-cent fare. The passes are good across the entire Mountain Line system, are available at various locations (public library, public safety building, etc.) and from city representatives (police, city ambassadors), and come packaged with a handout detailing Mountain Line’s routes in correlation to the area’s various social service agencies.
For December, the city purchased 600 passes at a cost of $402. All told, 221 trips were taken using the access pass, 129 of which were on the Don Knotts route.
Prior to December, the city was paying $5,000 monthly to keep the Don Knotts line free for everyone.
On the back end, the county is putting up as much as $5,000 monthly in a pilot program to provide social service agencies passes that they can distribute to their clients.
For December, a total of 315 single-use passes and 323 15-use passes were provided to seven agencies (Child Care Services, Aspire, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities Grace Shelter, Milan Puskar Health Right, Project Rainbow and Fairmont Morgantown Housing Authority) at a cost of $3,440.
Of the 5,010 potential rides those passes represented, a total of 1,852 rides were taken, including 1,528 on the Don Knotts route.
Unused passes/rides don’t expire month to month and the county requires agencies to provide data reflecting how the passes are utilized.
“The county is a pilot program, but I think they plan to continue it for six to 18 months, is what I’m told,” Smith said. “The idea is to give us a feel for what the actual need of the social services is, put a dollar value to that and figure out what we can do to help them out going forward.”
Smith said she believes this will be a more targeted, cost-efficient solution for all involved while still providing service for those who need it.
“It has been very good working with the city and the county. They have been in with both feet wanting to help out with this issue. I think we’ve all worked together pretty well and come up with a good plan,” Smith said. “We’re looking at the finance part of it and seeing how much we’re spending on it versus doing free ridership on Don Knotts. So, we’re keeping an eye on that, but so far, it looks like both of them are spending less than what they were.”
As for overall December numbers on the Don Knotts route, the totals actually jumped slightly to 6,734 rides. That’s up from 6,706 in November, when everyone rode for free.
Less than a quarter of the total rides, 1,657, were covered using the city and county pass programs. About 32%, or 2,155, paid cash and the rest were either covered under Mountain Line’s various other pass programs or were prepaid.
