Tag: microtransit

Bloomington Transit puts off nixing northern loop on Route #1, OKs $32.6 million budget for 2025

Bloomington Transit ridership numbers.
Proposed Route 1 revision.

At its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, Bloomington Transit’s board approved the agency’s budget for 2025, which weighs in at $32.6 million.

The budget was not controversial for board members, because they’d received a briefing on a draft last month, and the version in front of them on Tuesday saw only minor revisions.

What took more time than it typically does were the board deliberations on a change to one fixed bus route.

In this case, the proposal to chop the northern loop off of Route #1, in order to achieve better on-time performance, was put off by the board, pending further study and consideration of other alternatives by BT staff

Continue reading “Bloomington Transit puts off nixing northern loop on Route #1, OKs $32.6 million budget for 2025” →

Column: Testing out Bloomington’s new BLink microtransit service

Strawberry sundae at Bruster’s on July 19, 2024.
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https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1L6JhJVYyMFXmzQziKpOt_b2UBmo8jCk&usp=sharing

Last week, on Monday, Bloomington Transit launched a new on-demand service called BLink.

Using the BLink app, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, passengers can request a ride between any of three zones inside the city of Bloomington—North, East, and Downtown. The pickup window is a half hour long. Drivers will wait up to five minutes on a passenger.

Passengers can also book these zone-to-zone rides up to 24 hours in advance. The fare for the new service is $2. The regular fixed route fare is $1.

At last Tuesday evening’s BT board meeting, Shelley Strimaitis, who is BT’s planning and special projects manager, gave an update on the new service. No rides had been taken for the first two days of the BLink service.

That was likely due in part, to the fact that BT has not aggressively marketed the service, yet, beyond a post to BT’s Facebook page. Strimaitis said that a direct mailing would be sent out, once the flyers have been printed.

A microtransit service like BLink, has the potential to help residents get to the places they need to go, faster and easier—places like work, medical appointments, school, job interviews, court appointments, childcare centers, or government offices.

But to test out the service on Friday, starting from my downtown apartment, I chose a pretty low-stakes mission—Bruster’s Real Ice Cream on the eastern edge of town.

Judged only by the standard of the number of strawberry sundaes enjoyed (+1), Friday’s mission counted as a solid success. But there are more standards than just ice cream. Continue reading “Column: Testing out Bloomington’s new BLink microtransit service” →

Bloomington Transit board briefed on $32.6M budget for 2025, new east-west line, microtransit

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At its Tuesday meeting, Bloomington Transit’s five-member board of directors received a presentation on the proposed 2025 budget, a preliminary report about a possible new east-west high-frequency bus line  for Bloomington, and an update on the launch of its new BLink microtransit service.

At $32.6 million, Bloomington Transit’s draft 2025 budget is about $6 million bigger than the adopted 2024 spending plan.

The 2025 budget will include about $12.5 million for land acquisition, to build a new operations facility. That’s the same land acquisition project that is in the 2024 budget, that money has not yet been spent, and likely won’t be by the end of the year.

But a $35-million federal grant that BT had hoped to get, to support the construction of the new facility on the new land, won’t appear in the 2025 budget. That grant was not awarded to BT.

The increase of roughly $6 million between the 2024 and 2025 budgets is for vehicles—fixed-route buses, relief vehicles, and paratransit vans.

Ridership on fixed-route buses for May and June was down compared to the first four months of the year. But that’s the routine rhythm of bus ridership in Bloomington, which follows the cycle of Indiana University’s calendar.

Compared to May and June in 2023, ridership this year is basically the same, which is a departure from the year-over-year monthly increases that BT was seeing during the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Continue reading “Bloomington Transit board briefed on $32.6M budget for 2025, new east-west line, microtransit” →

Bloomington Transit to launch new micro-transit service with slogan: ‘BLink and you’ll be there!’

Bloomington Transit Monthly Ridership
Branding for BLink’s microtransit to be used on Bloomington Transit vehicles.
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Starting July 15, Bloomington Transit (BT) plans to start offering a new zone-based on-demand service that is meant to help connect riders to the fixed-route bus system, or even provide the whole trip.

The program is branded as BLink—which is pronounced “blink” not “bee-link.” The pronunciation squares up with the marketing slogan: BLink and you’ll be there!

Presenting the planned BLink service program on Tuesday night at the regular meeting of the BT board was Shelley Strimaitis, who is BT’s planning and special projects manager.

Using the BLink app, or by making a phone call, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, passengers will be able to ask for a ride between any of three zones inside the city of Bloomington—North, East, and Downtown. Passengers will also be able to book zone-to-zone rides up to 24 hours in advance. The fare for the new service is $2. The regular fixed route fare is $1.

The service is not door-to-door, but rather “corner to corner” with riders picked up and dropped off at designated locations. Those pickup locations are the dots indicated on the zone maps.

The BLink program will provide a single point-of-entry for the new micro-transit service as well as two other, existing services offered by BT—BT Late Nite and BTAccess.

BT Late Nite is an on-demand service that BT offers through Uber and Lyft, which runs from 9 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. Monday through Friday. BTAccess is BT’s ADA paratransit service.

Continue reading “Bloomington Transit to launch new micro-transit service with slogan: ‘BLink and you’ll be there!’” →

Bloomington public bus notebook: Uber-Lyft late night continues, paratransit to get same-day service

Now set to continue, but with a few tweaks, is pilot program started last year by Bloomington Transit (BT), to replace late night service on some routes—with vouchers that can be used on Uber or Lyft.

The Uber-Lyft option is branded as BT Late Nite.

The approach of using transportation network companies (TNCs) as a replacement for running 40-foot buses on fixed routes is known in the public transportation industry as “microtransit.”

The geographic area served by BT Late Nite includes the parts of town served by routes that had their late evening service discontinued last year.

BT general manager John Connell briefed the board on program changes at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday.

For the pilot program, BT Late Nite passengers paid the same $1 fare that fixed route passengers do. For the continuation of BT Late Nite, Connell said, passengers will pay $2, because BT considers it a “premium” service. That’s because the Uber and Lyft service goes from a passenger’s departure point to their destination, not just from bus stop to bus stop. Continue reading “Bloomington public bus notebook: Uber-Lyft late night continues, paratransit to get same-day service” →

Bloomington Transit OKs 5-year deal, will get $3.8 million annually from city’s local income tax

Bloomington Transit will receive at least $3.8 million a year for the next five years from the city of Bloomington, under an interlocal agreement approved by BT’s five-member board at its final meeting of the year, on Dec. 20.

The agreement still needs to win approval from Bloomington’s city council.

The deal is expected to appear on a city council meeting agenda sometime in January, based on remarks from BT general manager John Connell at last week’s board meeting.

The money is coming from the increase to the local income tax that was approved by the city council in May of 2022.

The big initiative that the money is supposed to help fund is an east-west crosstown express route.

Some other specific initiatives that the money is supposed to pay for include: implementation of Sunday service in the first quarter of 2023; enhancement of the paratransit microtransit services; increasing frequency of weekday service; and development of a ridership subsidy program.

The new transit initiatives come as BT is clawing back ridership on its regular fixed route service, after a big drop when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020. Continue reading “Bloomington Transit OKs 5-year deal, will get $3.8 million annually from city’s local income tax” →

Taking BT Late Nite for a spin: $1 trip by public bus for ice cream, same $1 for trip with Uber back home

Smartphone screenshot of DoubleMap, BT’s bus tracking system.
Vanilla cone dipped in chocolate.
Smartphone screenshot of Uber app.

Starting Monday, scheduled bus service on several Bloomington Transit fixed routes are ending a couple hours earlier.

By around 9:30 p.m. on Monday, the big 40-foot buses on Routes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 had ended their runs for the day.

But Bloomington residents could still take rides using the public transportation system—from 9 a.m. to midnight—through a program that Bloomington Transit is marketing as BT Late Nite.

For areas of the city within a quarter mile of those early-ending routes, BT Late Nite now offers passengers who have a smartphone the option of taking rides using Uber or Lyft—for just the regular $1 fare. BT Late Nite operates Monday through Friday.

The difference between the actual cost of the ride on Uber/Lyft and the $1 fare paid by the passenger is covered by BT. Both ride hailing companies are handling the BT portion of the fare through a voucher system.

After the BT Late Nite test ride taken by The B Square on Monday evening, the Uber fare of $8.90 was still shown on the digital receipt as a “pending” charge against the B Square’s credit card. Based on Uber documentation, that should eventually be adjusted down to $1, with the rest of the amount covered by the BT Late Nite voucher. Continue reading “Taking BT Late Nite for a spin: $1 trip by public bus for ice cream, same $1 for trip with Uber back home” →

Bloomington Transit set for Uber/Lyft pilot in May, to send city council memo on local income tax increase

On Tuesday night, the five-member Bloomington Transit (BT) board voted unanimously to go ahead with a pilot program starting in early May that will use Uber or Lyft—with a subsidy for the rides taken under BT’s banner—to replace late night service on some existing routes.

The board also discussed a proposal by Bloomington mayor John Hamilton to increase the local income tax paid by all Monroe County residents and to use some of Bloomington’s share of the additional revenue to fund new BT transportation initiatives.

The tax package includes around $5 million in public transportation projects, including a new east-west route with 15-minute frequency.

Board members expressed concern that the funding for the kind of transportation proposals described in the tax package would require some kind of long-term commitment by the city of Bloomington to BT. A memo with that message is supposed to be forwarded to the city council before Wednesday night’s city council meeting.

On Wednesday (April 20), the city council could take a final vote on the 0.855-point tax increase, which would raise the overall local income tax to a total of 2.2 percent.

Earlier in the day on Tuesday, BT announced that masks to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus would no longer be required on BT buses. That was the same approach that most transit providers seem to have taken after a federal judge struck down US President Joe Biden’s executive order requiring mask wearing. [text of US District Court Middle District of Florida ruling] Continue reading “Bloomington Transit set for Uber/Lyft pilot in May, to send city council memo on local income tax increase” →

Bloomington Transit wants public input: Route changes, late-hours swap of regular bus for Uber/Lyft

Bloomington Transit general manager John Connell.
Bloomington Transit planning and special projects manager Zac Huneck.

A series of changes to optimize bus routes that were planned for 2020 implementation, but were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, are now back under consideration by Bloomington Transit.

Highlights include: the consolidation of Routes 1 South and 7 Express into a single route to be called Route 7; and the merging of Route 3 East, Route 8 Local, Route 9 Campus, and Route 10 Hospital into a single route to be called Route 90.

The Route 90 would operate on a bidirectional loop, with 20-minute frequency each way. The loop would encompass downtown, the Indiana University campus, and some of the east side down to the College Mall area.

Subject to final board approval, those route changes would be implemented in August of this year.

A pilot project that could be rolled out earlier is the replacement of the late-night service on some routes with “microtransit.” That means passengers could take an Uber/Lyft style ride for the standard $1 fare, with the remaining cost, up to $15, to be covered by Bloomington Transit.

The pilot for the micro-transit would be rolled out in May, after the IU semester ends.
Continue reading “Bloomington Transit wants public input: Route changes, late-hours swap of regular bus for Uber/Lyft” →

Bloomington Transit OKs side letter with drivers union: Pay bump, $1,000 essential-worker bonus

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At its Tuesday meeting, the five-member Bloomington Transit board voted to approve a side letter agreement with AFSCME Local 613, which is the drivers union.

The agreement is hoped to aid recruitment of new drivers—BT is currently short by about a dozen. The agreement is also hoped to reduce a recent spate of cancelled bus runs, chronicled on BT’s Twitter account, due to lack of drivers on the overtime list.

The side letter increases starting pay for drivers by $2 an hour—from $16.32 to $18.32—and gives those with more experience a $1,000 essential-worker bonus.

The context of the phrase “essential worker” connects to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drivers were still expected to keep the buses running, even though the number of service hours was reduced.

To cover the cost of the essential-worker bonus, BT will use money it received through the federal CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act.

The side letter approved by the board also requires at least 12 drivers to sign up for the overtime list. The letter also clarifies the wording of the existing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) about how overtime can be mandated and the right to refuse a withdrawal from the overtime list.

The side letter is still contingent on a vote of the union membership. Continue reading “Bloomington Transit OKs side letter with drivers union: Pay bump, $1,000 essential-worker bonus” →