CHARLESTON, W.Va. — After months of debate, the Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation Authority made the decision to do away with Sunday bus services, a move that’s expected to save them close to $2 million in their annual budget.
The full board at KRT met with a smaller subcommittee Thursday who have been in charge of overseeing the ongoing transition process. The new change was made in a 12 to 1 vote.
It also includes cutting back trip frequencies and implementing a new on-demand ridesharing platform called KRTPlus.
KRT Executive Director Sean Hill said eliminating Sunday services was necessary in their effort to save money and address declining ridership. He said it will save them an estimated $1.9 million.
Hill said although necessary, this was a tough decision to make.
Sean Hill
“Throughout this whole process this has been very taxing on the admin here at KRT and the board members, that’s why we’ve gone through the process of doing three public hearings and having over 600 public comments and it has been spread out,” Hill said. “We started this process in 2022, so almost three years later we’re finally making a decision, and that’s because it wasn’t an easy decision.”
The board hosted the third and final public hearing on the matter Wednesday evening.
Around 10 people spoke at the hearing compared to the over 100 that shared their opinions during the first hearing held in May when KRT was initially proposing to eliminate up to 11 bus routes.
Hill said this new plan assures passengers will not lose those 11 routes, but they will still see an impact on when they operate.
“Instead of eliminating those 11 routes, it minimizes the frequency, essentially it cuts the frequency in half, so those individuals will still be able to get to work and get home from work with KRT system, it’s just going to help meet those budgetary realities we need to live with,” he said.
However, despite the fact that no routes will be cut, many passengers are concerned about not having bus service on Sundays.
One passenger, Edward Woolwine said at Wednesday’s public hearing that he will not be able to get to work under this new change.
“I’ll have to tell my employer that I can’t work Sundays, which is not right for me, not right for my employer, it’s just a royal pain,” Woolwine said.
An unidentified bus driver for KRT spoke up at Thursday’s meeting before the final decision to do away with Sunday service was made. He said it’s a win-win for him and the other drivers because their salaries or jobs won’t be impacted by the change and they will no longer have to work 7 days a week.
“A lot of them were worried when all of this came about was lay-offs and that’s one particular thing I will stand by any plan as long as there’s no lay-offs, but my members, a lot of them, would like to have Sundays off,” said one KRT driver.
Hill said they are also working to standardize the service frequencies and hours.
“We had some routes historically that started at 5 in the morning and some that started at 7, etc., we trying to make sure we keep those all together and so when we push our schedules out it will be easier for individuals who are coming to KRT’s system to understand how the platform works,” Hill said.
The other new change, KRTPlus, Hill said will work similar to any other ridesharing service such as Uber or Lyft where a passenger can get on their smartphone and enter in the spot they need to be picked up at and where they need to go. He said people can also call KRT’s office to schedule a ride if they don’t have access to a smartphone.
Hill said the service will work in thee different ways.
The first option will get passengers from their home to the bus route stop. The second will include zones that KRT created where a passenger can get picked up within one certain zone and taken to another place inside that zone. And the third option will allow a passenger to be transported to certain point-of-interests within any of the zones, with West Virginia International Yeager Airport being the first point-of-interest based on strong demand.
Hill said the fare for option one will remain at $1.50. He said during the pilot program, option two inside the zones will be free, but eventually there will be a cost associated with that. And Hill said option three, the point-of-interest, will entail a $12 to $15 dollar fare.
Hill said the decision to make these major changes come as KRT’s ridership sees a major decline, and he said it hasn’t rebounded from the Covid-19 Pandemic.
“Covid took a big hit to KRT’s system, there was a point in time before Covid where we had about 2 million passengers each year, right now we’re hovering a little over a million, so it was a big impact and it’s tough to put your finger on exactly what caused that, but we have noticed ridership going up in certain instances,” he said.
Hill said implementing KRTPlus is expected to help increase that ridership.
He said they are hopeful they can get KRTPlus up and running within the next month.
The elimination of Sunday services will not take effect until February 2025.
Hill said as they move through the transition and collect more data, they will see how the elimination is working and whether the need is there to ever bring Sunday service back again.
“It’s too soon to tell, but one thing that I want to stress is that KRT needs to be more liquid and more open to changes and I appreciate the patience and understanding from the public, and as we move through this and see what works and what doesn’t work, anything is on the table,” said Hill.