Metro Bus Forward Draft Service Recommendations

Review our draft recommendations for Metro Bus and tell us what you think by taking a short survey.

Transit Study Goals

Like all transit agencies, Metro Bus must periodically review its transit services and make service adjustments that reflect current passenger needs, recent demographic shifts and changes in how people travel throughout the region. Branded as Metro Bus Forward, this project is an opportunity to address the following goals for the project:

Build transit ridership. Over the years ridership has been declining, even before the pandemic. Across cities in the US and here at Metro Bus, we have seen how and why people’s travel has changed. The pandemic further impacted ridership decline on public transit services. A primary focus of this project is to develop transit strategies to maintain and grow ridership among existing riders, as well as attract new riders.

Deliver transit to the community efficiently. Most transit providers across the country are struggling to meet existing service commitments due to available funding, lack of transit operators, or supply chain challenges and maintaining transit vehicles.  While Metro Bus has fared better than many other regions in some of these areas, an important outcome of this study is to develop strategies for improving the efficiency of delivering transit in the service area.

Support local equity goals. Metro Bus already provides service throughout St. Cloud, Sauk Rapids, Sartell and Waite Park. This project will need to develop recommendations that align with - and continue to advance - local equity and inclusion goals. Having regular conversations with stakeholders and collecting information from riders and non-riders will help to ensure that we can provide a service that supports the community.

How service design impacts transit riders

Today, many of the existing bus routes are designed as a one-way service, which has allowed Metro Bus to spread out its limited resources to serve many locations across the community. However, the tradeoff for this type of service design is that riders will have a longer return trip. In developing our recommendations, we explored whether we could provide access to the same neighborhoods and destinations, but also try to provide more bidirectional service with the same amount of resources by removing duplicative services, or services that have very little or no ridership.

Draft Service Recommendations

Use the slider map to compare the existing service (left) to the draft service recommendations (right)

The recommendations focus on ...

  • Providing more frequent service between major destinations to provide service where demand is strong
  • Operating direct and bidirectional service on many routes to improve efficiency and usability
  • Reallocating service from areas with little or no ridership to make the best use of existing resources
  • Maintaining the same hours of service as today
  • Introducing and improving crosstown connections to better serve new travel patterns
  • Providing on-demand service in low-density areas to more effectively provide service coverage
  • Redesigning routes to serve the future West Side Transit Center in Waite Park
  • Providing a baseline network using existing resources that can be improved over time

Frequency

Our transit recommendations focus on frequency. Route 1, Route 2, Route 3, and Route 33 would come every 30 minutes. This means riders will experience shorter wait times for those routes.

Because our recommendations emphasize more frequent service on the most productive routes and corridors, more people and jobs will be within a short walk to more frequent service compared to the existing service. The tradeoff is that some areas with low ridership may see less service than today and/or some passengers may have to walk further to reach transit service.

Options for Future Service Expansion

The draft service recommendations provide a baseline Metro Bus network using existing resources. Over time, the network is designed to be expanded as future resources become available.

The long-term vision for Metro Bus includes the following future improvements:

  • Route 5 improved to 30 minute weekday frequency
  • Route 4 improved to 30 minute weekday frequency
  • Route 12 and 14 improved to 60 minute weekday frequency
  • A new on-demand zone in Sauk Rapids
  • A new on-demand zone in south St Cloud
  • A new route to Opportunity Drive (assumes three weekday round trips connecting to the Downtown Transit Center to serve key shift times)
  • Add one hour of service in the morning on all routes on weekdays
  • Add one hour of service in the evening on all routes on weekdays
  • Add Sunday service on Route 10
  • Add one additional service hour on all routes on Saturday (morning or evening)
  • One additional service hour on all routes on Sunday (morning or evening)

While all improvements are important, we can't do everything at one time. Help us prioritize the improvements by sorting them from most important to least important in the survey below.

Survey

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