Good Monday morning.

Gastonia will join an emerging trend in suburban public transportation today. Gone will be the mostly empty city buses running on six fixed routes, replaced by a fleet of 14 minivans that will operate like private ridesharing services.

Instead of waiting at a bus stop for up to an hour, riders can now either call or use their smartphone to book a $2 one-way ride and have a minivan pick them up at or near their home and take them to their destination. The disabled and those 65 and older will only pay $1. Children 5 and under ride free with a paying adult.

While the service will provide door-to-door service for the disabled, in most cases those seeking rides will have to walk a few blocks to an intersection, says Randi Gates the city’s transportation director.

City officials say few people used the old system because it just didn’t work well. Buses covered less than half of the city’s approximately 50 square miles and only averaged seven passengers per vehicle hour across all six routes.

“We knew we needed to do better with public transportation in the city,” says Gates.

About seven N.C. communities offer similar microtransit services. Orange County and the city of Wilson started microtransit service in 2020. Wake County, Sanford and Durham have started their programs in the last few years. Wilmington-based RideMicro connects portions of Brunswick, Pender and New Hanover counties.

Later this year or in early 2024, Charlotte’s transit system hopes to launch its microtransit system similar to private ridesharing programs like Uber and Lyft in the towns of Cornelius, Davidson and Huntersville.

Charlotte Area Transit System ridership has tanked by nearly 50% in the past decade. It projects 16.5 million passenger trips in the year ending June 30, 2025, compared with 29.5 million in 2014. The city budgets about $260 million on CATS now, versus $110 million a decade ago.

The city of Gastonia had reasons other than low ridership for its change. Its fleet of buses were aging and replacing them would cost between $750,000 for a diesel unit to $1 million for an electric modelm says Gates.

The city received $2.7 million in federal funding, matched with $1.6 million in city funds, to launch the program. In fiscal year 2025, those numbers will reduce to $2 million in federal funds and $1.5 million in city money. That’s about the same cost as using the buses, which carried about 144,000 passengers last fiscal year.

Gastonia expects to see ridership increase under its new plan. Most people who ride buses now have no other way. Microtransit riders will see it as an alternative, Gates says.

“You book a ride when you need it. You’re not waiting around at a bus stop,” Gates says.

She says a goal will be to get several people from the same area and heading in the same direction in the vans together. “If we can get single occupancy vehicles off the road, it’s going to help our congestion issues,” she says.

The system will operate from 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays.

Kevin Ellis
dailydigest@businessnc.com