Rock Region Metro has developed changes that likely would go online this fall on more than half of its 26 regular bus routes.
The changes in routes also come as the Pulaski County transit agency has signaled that fares might rise. At the same time it announced the proposed route changes, the agency also said it would conduct its first fare review in seven years.
"The board of directors will have fare discussions during the budgeting process," said Jarod Varner, the Rock Region executive director.
A one-way adult fare now costs $1.35, a transfer costs a nickel, and a monthly pass for adults costs $36.
Varner described the proposed route tweaks as "micro-changes" that the agency could fit within its existing budget and produce a more "efficient system" that may help attract more riders.
"The staff has done a tremendous job of leveraging technology -- the automatic passenger-counting system -- leveraging that and listening to our operators and listening to the public to come up with meaningful changes in our current funding," Varner said. "We're pretty excited about it.
"We think the public is going to appreciate the changes, the ease of use, streamlining some of the routes," he said. "It's about increasing efficiencies. We have to make people more willing to use it, and the changes the operations and planning team has put together is going to help that."
The agency, using previously unavailable technology, sought to focus on "low- or no-cost solutions" developed in its strategic plan, to improve frequencies and transfer points in "high-demand key corridors," to provide more direct service to "popular destinations as often as possible," and to "adjust schedules to existing traffic conditions and ridership needs."
In a survey taken over a week at the agency's downtown Little Rock travel center, riders identified the most pressing service need as longer hours of operation -- service ends at 8 p.m. -- and the most popular route request was extending service on Chenal Parkway past Bowman Road. Neither request could fit within the existing budget, transit officials said.
The proposed changes won't be finalized and available for public review until late next month, when they are presented in a series of five public meetings. The dates and places for the meetings are:
• July 19, Little Rock Southwest Community Center, 6401 Baseline Road.
• July 20, Laman Library, Room 216, at 2801 Orange St. in North Little Rock.
• July 25, Jess Odom Community Center, 1100 Edgewood Drive in Maumelle.
• July 26, Bill Harmon Recreation Center, 51 Shelby Road in Sherwood.
• July 27, Central Arkansas Library System Main Branch, 100 S. Rock St. in Little Rock.
All meetings are scheduled to last from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
"There's so many moving parts," Varner said. "It's very much a work in progress. This is very much not a finished product. It is part of the overall planning process."
The proposed changes amount to Plan B after voters rejected a quarter-percentage-point increase in the countywide sales tax to shore up the transit system. The margin in the March 1 vote was 57 percent against and 43 percent in favor.
It was to be the county's first tax to be solely dedicated to transit and was projected to raise $18 million annually. Rock Region planned to use the proceeds to expand regular bus service, increase the frequency of stops on its busiest routes, tailor other routes to better serve riders, and establish some routes using larger buses on traffic lanes reserved for them.
"The good news, however, is that we were able to make several minor improvements we think our riders will appreciate, without the benefit of a dedicated source of funding," Varner said.
The proposed changes involved "a lot of math" and were limited by the constraints of the agency's financial agreement with Pulaski County and the five cities it serves: Little Rock, North Little Rock, Maumelle, Jacksonville and Sherwood.
The 1986 interlocal agreement that created the agency requires that service miles within the system must stay within the jurisdiction that funds them. In other words, the agency cannot add service miles to one jurisdiction by removing them from another jurisdiction.
For instance, service miles cannot be added in Little Rock without removing service miles from another Little Rock location. As a result, modest changes to one route often necessitate changes to nearby routes.
Under the proposed changes, Route 14, Rosedale, which is the most popular route in the system, no longer will serve The Cottages apartments on West 36th Street, which is home to a number of people who are elderly or disabled.
About 50 buses a day now go into the small turnaround inside the complex, resulting in damage to the pavement.
Taking Route 14 out of The Cottages will improve the times on the route. To offset the loss of Route 14 at The Cottages, Rock Region proposes to put the apartment complex on the less-used Route 9, West Central/John Barrow, the only route on the system that doesn't serve the downtown travel center.
To make the route more attractive, it would add service to the West Central Community Center, which was a city priority, and service to the Wal-Mart on South Shackleford Road, providing riders a "one-seat" ride to a major shopping area. It also would drop an unproductive section of Colonel Glenn Road and re-route it along 12th Street, boosting that thoroughfare as a "major transit corridor."
Other routes that would undergo changes under the proposal as it presently stands include Route 8, Rodney Parham; Route 11, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive; Route 12, Presidential Center/East Sixth; Route 15, 65th Street; Route 16, UALR; Route 17, Mabelvale/Downtown; Route 20, Airport/College Station; Route 21, University Avenue; Route 22, Mabelvale/Midtown; and Route 23, Baseline/Southwest, all in Little Rock.
Two other routes that would be tweaked under the proposal are in North Little Rock: Route 4, Levy/Amboy, and Route 18, McAlmont.
An example of how the proposed changes work is Route 22, Mabelvale/Midtown, said Donna Bowers, the operations director for Rock Region.
"That's going to consolidate the southern portion of Route 21, remove some of the redundancy without affecting frequency along University Avenue and then also provide service to the Wakefield neighborhood, which will allow residents in that area direct access to Wal-Mart on Baseline," she said.
Wakefield residents can get to that Wal-Mart, but only after going downtown to transfer to another route "to get to any kind of shopping center," Bowers said. "That's a major improvement for them. I think that captures the essence of everything that we're trying to do here by having complementary changes amongst a variety of routes using the knowledge that we have, the strategic plan that is already in place and developing a flat cost improvement within that parameter."
Metro on 06/20/2016