LITTLE ROCK -- Rock Region Metro will drop under-performing bus routes, replace some of them with microtransit zones, expand service hours for remaining weekly and weekend bus service and increase stop frequency to 30 minutes for most routes under a draft network plan the agency's top official wants to see implemented as soon as November.
Both Little Rock and North Little Rock will get new cross-town transfers, which eliminate going downtown to make a transfer. Little Rock would have a new transfer point at West Markham and Cedar and Pine streets, and North Little Rock would have one at Pershing Boulevard and Willow Street.
"There's a lot of modification to the system using different modes of transportation," said Charles Frazier, the agency's executive director.
The new route plan known as RIDE 2020, would add no costs to the system, he said in a presentation Tuesday. RIDE is an acronym for Route Innovation, Development and Evaluation. It is being developed under a $300,000 contract with Transportation Management & Design, a San Diego consulting firm specializing in mass transit.
Although routes will be dropped, the proposed restructured routes and microtransit zones will be closer to a larger percentage of the population, according to Melissa Sather, an executive with the firm.
Fifty-six percent of county residents and 69% of county employees will live within a half-mile of a regular bus route or microtransit zone, she said. Those figures now are 43% and 62%, respectively.
In addition to expanded service hours on weekdays and weekends, more frequent stops and additional microtransit zones, service will be simplified, more direct and faster, and extend bus service on Chenal Parkway to the Promenade at Chenal, Sather said.
Extending Route 5 along Chenal Parkway, a "jobs- and retail- heavy corridor," has been the "No. 1 rider service request we've heard about for years now," said Becca Green, the agency's public engagement director.
And 75% of riders will have access to routes which have buses that reach a stop every 30 minutes, she said. Only 22% of riders have that access now.
"That is major progress for a cost-neutral option," Green said.
During the week, some routes will run an additional hour, to 9 p.m. and Saturday service will run an additional two hours, to 6 p.m. Both weekday and Saturday service start at 5 a.m.
Sunday service will be expanded an additional five hours, going from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. It now runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Two routes will be dropped from the system under the draft. They are Route 17 Mablevale/Downtown, which officials say is largely redundant, and Route 25 Pinnacle Mountain, which is the route with the lowest ridership in the system.
Nine other routes will be shifted permanently to microtransit zones under the draft network plan.
Microtransit is an on-demand service for areas where transit demand is less robust, in which smaller vehicles are used to pick up people at their door and take them to stops on regular routes.
Riders can track their vehicles with real-time arrival push notifications and door-to-door service, and access places not previously accessed by regular bus service if it falls within the zone.
Rock Region installed its first microtransit service in the John Barrow area of Little Rock to replace Route 9 last summer.
The draft makes permanent the Riverdale microtransit zone, which has been operating as a pilot project.
It also makes permanent four other routes that are being served by temporary microtransit zones because of the coronavirus pandemic and the social-distancing protocols in place, which include limiting each bus to 10 passengers.
Those include routes 4 Levy/Amboy and 7 Shorter College in North Little Rock and routes 12 Clinton Center/Airport and 19 Hensley Express in Little Rock.
Two other express routes would be changed to microtransit zones -- routes 26 Maumelle/Oak Grove Express and 36 Jacksonville/Sherwood Express.
The hours of service for the proposed microtransit zones in North Little Rock, Maumelle, Jacksonville and Sherwood would be determined by local jurisdictions under the draft.
The express routes which are being turned into microtransit zones or, as in the case of Route 25 Pinnacle, eliminated, are "considerably under performing," Sather said.
The express routes average five passengers per revenue hour compared to 16 passengers per revenue hour for regular bus routes. The express route subsidy is $23.48 per passenger. On regular routes, the subsidy is $4.77 per passenger.
Routes 12 and 20 in east Little Rock also will be converted to a microtransit zone, which Sather said would make transit more accessible for residents and allow them to connect with regular routes at the Kroger grocery store on Roosevelt Road or at the downtown travel center.
Frazier said the agency has been or will speak to affected stakeholders, including riders and elected officials as well as hold public hearings to identify any issues that were overlooked in the draft network plan. The outreach also will include public hearings later this summer before the board will be asked to approve the plan in July.
Board member Matt Lindsey of Little Rock praised the draft network plan.
"This is a very data-driven approach that I'm comfortable supporting," he said.
Donna Bowers, the agency's operations director, said there will be some push back from riders whose routes are being changed to microtransit or modified to make the routes faster and more efficient.
Board member Nicole Hart of North Little Rock said agency officials and board members will have to be sensitive about the changes, noting that the changes fall primarily in impoverished areas, especially in today's climate stemming from the death of a George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis.
"We may get hit with some of that," Hart said. "Sometimes they may feel like there's is some kind of racial bias or economic bias," she said. "Are we trying to push our routes to better affluence or to communities that actually need the transportation? We have to be prepared."
The proposed route changes come after an earlier phase of the study found that just four of the agency's 24 routes carried 40% of the 2.2 million passengers that used the system in 2018.
The system now, which is a blend of coverage routes and ridership routes, is not competitive with driving. Transportation Management & Design data found that it takes four times longer to take a bus to reach a destination than it does to drive.
Factors in the uncompetitive travel times include 70% of trips involve at least one transfer and routing buses through neighborhoods instead of leaving them on major thoroughfares.
NW News on 06/05/2020