A "Great Resource" with Few Takers: The County's Plan to Get More from Underused Buses
Three years after Transylvania County launched its fixed-route bus service, it attracts an average of fewer than 10 riders per day. The county planning director discussed strategies to change that.
BREVARD — Diane Weatherford sat on a concrete wall outside the Sharing House poverty assistance center Tuesday afternoon and talked up the benefits of Transylvania County’s fixed-route bus service.
Last week, she caught one of its 22-foot Ford passenger vans at Forest Gate Shopping Center, near the entrance to Pisgah National Forest, where she has been sleeping most nights since August.
It took her to Sharing House, allowed her to fill a prescription in town and returned her to Forest Gate. The driver was friendly and the bus was clean, comfortable and on time.
Weatherford, 58, said she expects the service to provide a major boost in her planned next steps towards securing stable housing and employment — staying at The Haven long-term homeless shelter and working as a waitress.
“Last week was the first time I rode it and I already got a monthly pass,” she said of the system. “I’m impressed with it.”
So why, other than a NewsBeat reporter, was driver Maria Stephens’ bus empty as she piloted it to more than a dozen stops earlier that afternoon? Why does the system serve an average of fewer than 10 riders per day?
A big reason, according to both Stephens and Weatherford: lack of awareness.
Weatherford, who has lived in Transylvania on and off for 20 years, said she didn’t learn about the buses until shortly before she boarded last week and Stephens said, “It’s amazing how many people still get on and say, ‘I didn’t even know about this service.’ ”
Spreading the word about the fixed-route program — launched three years ago this month — is one of the several actions the county is exploring to boost ridership, said Jeff Adams, the county’s planning and community development director.
In the near future, he said, changes to the fixed-route system will likely include the replacement of seldom-used stops with potentially popular destinations.
Longer term strategies are still in the discussion stage, but they could include tapping into underserved groups of riders, creating roadside bus stops and eliminating the $1 fare.
His department's overall goal, however, is already clear: getting the most out of what should be a significant community asset, especially for its target ridership of transportation-disadvantaged residents.
“It’s a great resource that we are paying for, and I think it can do a lot more than it does right now,” Adams said.
Changing the Route
“We” are paying primarily as federal rather than county taxpayers. Most of the funding for the county’s public transportation system, called TIM Transylvania in Motion, comes from federal funds distributed by the state — $434,000 in the current fiscal year and $538,000 in fiscal year 2024-25, an amount to be matched by $131,000 from local sources.
These sums cover both the newer fixed-route system — with an established schedule of stops and times — and a previously existing and far more popular demand-response service.
This option, which delivers users point to point if they book at least a day in advance, recorded 20,810 rides last fiscal year compared to 2,220 for the fixed-route system.
Both programs charge a standard $1 fare for most trips, though the fixed route system offers package deals to reduce costs for frequent riders and the demand-response service provides free rides for elderly and disabled residents within the city of Brevard. (This system also charges higher fares for trips outside of the county and to its remote communities.)
Both programs are due for an upgrade, when newly received handicapped-accessible vehicles hit the road next month. These will address the shortage of accommodation for disabled residents highlighted in a state review of the county’s fixed-route system. And a minivan for the demand-response program will allow the county to reach more remote locations now served exclusively by a contracted taxi company.
Though the number of fixed-route riders trended upward last year (see chart below), it could be a lot higher, and the task of making that happen began last year with surveys of drivers and members of the county’s Transportation Advisory Board.
Both of these reports pointed to an obvious first step, updating the current route, which was established three years ago.
The fixed-route bus starts each morning with a stops in Rosman, where it returns three times daily between hourly rounds through Brevard and Pisgah Forest. The total number of stops is 27 and several of them, such as the Harmony Korner convenience store on Rosman Highway, typically draw fewer than three riders per month.
Surveyed drivers recommended eliminating several such stops, while Board members saw opportunities in picking up more riders at, among other locations, the Mary C. Jenkins Community Center and the Aldi grocery — neither of which had opened when the route was established — as well as the Transylvania Public Library.
Not mentioned in the surveys is another stop that could tap into a whole new population of riders, Adams said, Brevard College.
“I don’t know of too many college towns where students are not huge users of the bus, and in this one they really aren’t,” he said.
Awareness
But the main thrust of the recommendations from the Board, made up mostly of representatives from agencies whose clients use the service, addresses the lack of awareness mentioned by Stephens and Weatherford.
One member, Deb Haight, assistant director of WNCSource in Transylvania, said in an interview she has a close-up view of the stop near the organization’s Brevard office.
“I seldom see people getting on there so I’ve been trying to think of ways to get more people to use it,” she said. One way might be to park buses at busy spots such as Ingles supermarket, offering tours and enticing residents to board by holding drawings for free passes.
This would allow the public to learn about the service and see for themselves, she said, that “these buses are really nice.”
Other suggestions from the Board survey included advertising targeted at students of Brevard College, Brevard Music Center and Blue Ridge Community College.
The county could also work with local media to promote public transportation and post schedules at all stops, said the county’s summary of the Board survey, which concluded that “the biggest takeaway is to do better at marketing and connecting with the community about our services.”
Free?
Adams has already started that process by, for example, holding a recent presentation at the Library, while also developing plans for future public engagement.
When the county hosts input sessions about the ongoing update of its comprehensive plan this spring, he said, it will include questions about transit, which would both raise awareness of the county’s programs and draw recommendations from a wide range of sources. In the meantime, he said, members of the public can email ideas for increasing ridership to planning@transylvaniacounty.org.
All the stops now require drivers to pull into parking lots of destinations such as Forest Gate and Blue Ridge Community College. Roadside stops fitted with signs or shelters would both allow buses to complete circuits faster and more frequently, he said, and essentially serve as billboards advertising the service.
Another possibility would build on a recommendation in the Board survey — that the county provide not just informational flyers about the fixed-route system to Sharing House, a hub of potential users, but also monthly passes to hand out to its clients, or “neighbors.”
Adams said the county could consider taking this generosity one step further, offering all fixed-route services for free.
This would encourage customers of the demand-response service, which is near capacity, to explore the underused fixed-route system, he said.
Fares from both programs currently provide a small percentage of the public transportation system’s total revenue, and Adams said he has talked with Clark Lovelace, executive director of the county’s tourism development authority, about securing a grant that would cover those costs.
Along with expanding service to popular destinations such as the Pisgah Ranger Station/Visitors’ Center, free service could allow the county to promote the system as a congestion-relieving shuttle for tourists, one of its primary function in visitation hubs such as Ketchum, Idaho.
“Most of these systems that I’ve talked about, in mountain communities, that’s their target audience — tourists,” he said.
A View of the Current System
Though Adams said he plans to take some proposed changes to the Commission next month, big amendments such as altering the fare structure would require long-term study.
But even as is, the system provides timely service to essential hubs of commerce, health care and education.
Stephens’ bus arrived at Ingles precisely at its prescribed time, 11 minutes after the hour and in the next 36 minutes hit a dozen stops including Blue Ridge Community College, Transylvania Regional Hospital and Forest Gate.
Stephens, who has been driving since shortly after the launch of the fixed-route service, said she appreciates the lack of stress on the job and the chance it gives her to help and engage with a range of residents from unhoused clients of Sharing House to a Brevard High School student whom she picks up in Rosman every morning.
As a full-time driver, Stephens receives benefits, she said, and the pay is a good supplement to her husband’s salary as a full-time teacher at Blue Ridge. And the Commission’s action last year to boost the starting salary from $12.19 to $14.53 has helped alleviate an earlier shortage of drivers.
“I love this job,” Stephens said.
But she acknowledged she’d like it more if the system was better used. And it would be, she said, if the county could spread the word of the fixed-route system and overcome what she described as a common misconception — that the white passenger vans circling the county are strictly for disabled and elderly residents.
Riders she picked up last fall, for example, told her “they had no idea this service even existed,” she said.
“They’d seen me but they had no idea what I was doing, and one guy said to me, ‘I wish I’d known, I’m getting tired of walking all the way into town.’ ”
Email: brevardnewsbeat@gmail.com
Yes, hope to see more publicity SOON !!!
I knew nothing of it. Perhaps print a route with stops? That would be very helpful. Indicate stop points if they aren't readily identifiable. Put it in the paper and is there any local TV news coverage?