Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
A Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority bus picks up riders near Grandview Medical Center on U.S. 280.
Despite lower gas prices and a national trend of people returning to their individual vehicles, some Birmingham bus routes are seeing an increase in ridership.
The 201 commuter route along U.S. 280, which travels between downtown Birmingham and the Walmart near Alabama 119 Monday through Saturday, has seen ridership increase from 132 monthly riders in October 2015 to averaging 2,000 each month in 2017.
The commuter route has seen significant increases in rider numbers since Grandview Medical Center opened, said Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority Executive Director Barbara Murdock.
“We have a lot of pickups at that Grandview point,” she said. “From the day it [the route] opened back in 2014, we started that route, it has been successful since picking up at Grandview.”
Grandview opened its doors in October 2015, and between October and November of that year, ridership nearly doubled from 589 to 1,100 monthly passengers. That number has continued to climb since.
“From an environmental standpoint, we’re happy to take that many cars off of 280,” Murdock said.
The commuter route is one of two BJCTA routes serving the 280 corridor, with the Highway 280 bus route serving 6,000-8,000 riders per month since January 2015.
High and increasing ridership numbers are promising for the U.S. 280 routes, Murdock said, and have led to some hopeful plans for the future of public transit in that area.
“That particular route tells me that we probably should look at ways of improving that service; both of them, the fact that they’re so well used,” Murdock said.
Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato said he is not surprised to see an increase in bus riders along U.S. 280, and said they are an important service to offer.
“We believe that public transit is important, and that particularly to get people to get to their jobs,” Brocato said. “I think that’s the most important thing that we needed in Hoover and in the metro area, period.”
Hoover has a lot of businesses and service industry jobs along U.S. 280, Brocato said, and individuals working in those positions can benefit from public transit options.
“The simple fact is that a lot of folks in the service industry might not be able to afford a car, but they need to be able to make a living the best they can,” Brocato said.
Traffic troubles
Thousands of vehicles traverse U.S. 280 on a daily basis, and during rush hour, those same vehicles can be seen clogging up the roadway. Single passenger vehicles and buses alike are stuck in the traffic, inching toward downtown in the morning and toward the Narrows in the evening.
“Right now, we can’t get you to town any quicker than a car because of traffic,” Murdock admits. But, there are ways she sees public transportation helping make travel along U.S. 280 more efficient.
Even though the two BJCTA routes on the thoroughfare see an increase in ridership, it has not alleviated traffic, Murdock said, and even if ridership continues to increase, she does not see congestion decreasing. Not even a fourth, regular travel lane would help.
“It would be packed the day it opened,” Murdock said. “So highway expansion is not the answer. Public transit is.”
And not just any public transit — new, more attractive forms of public transit.
“We need to start thinking about Bus Rapid Transit [BRT], a single lane down the center of 280 that would go from Walmart to downtown,” Murdock said. “That way, the buses aren’t getting stopped with the traffic. When it has that single lane, it has single prioritization and keeps going straight. That would be the answer to getting people faster to downtown.”
Transit transition
The BRT lane would hypothetically run in the center of the interstate, which would both take buses off the road and make public transit more appealing to commuters, Murdock said.
“I think the demographic groups might be different [for Bus Rapid Transit or light rail],” Murdock said, “and I’ll say that because the majority of riders at Grandview are workers. We’re going after choice riders — those who have one car or more, and would give it up to get on the bus.”
To obtain those choice riders, they would need people to trust public transportation and have the concept be more appealing than taking their own car. That comes from having a much faster way to get downtown, through a BRT lane, or through a more unusual option such as a light rail system.
“Bus Rapid Transit or light rail is exotic — sexy,” Murdock said, adding that the exoticism helps overcome the “stigma” associated with public transportation. “Don’t you hear people say all the time, ‘Oh, I went to Atlanta and I got on the MARTA [Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority] train?’ or ‘I went to New York City, and I rode the subway’?”
Brocato also said he believes a different public transit method would help alleviate traffic on U.S. 280, by appealing to a wider range of commuters.
“Can you imagine being able to, if you live out in Greystone or Brook Highland or Chelsea and you have to go somewhere downtown to work, going to a central parking station and hopping on rapid transit, and rather than fighting traffic anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and 39 minutes, getting downtown in a half hour? I don’t know what the downside to that is,” Brocato said.
It is possible to obtain grants for BRT or light rail projects, Murdock said, although light rail is a very expensive project. She said she has been encouraged by Brocato’s support of public transit, and she hopes he will help lead conversations with other mayors along U.S. 280.
To implement BRT or other changes, they would need the approval of at least six municipalities — Birmingham, Vestavia Hills, Homewood, Mountain Brook, Hoover and Jefferson County. That number could increase to seven if BJCTA extended into Shelby County.
“The biggest challenge is you’re talking about … [is] seven jurisdictions plus the federal government,” Brocato said. “That’s the challenge right there. And it’s something we talk about all the time, and why we may have difficulty in the metro area and growing is because we have so many jurisdictions.”
While he thinks other mayors would be open to discussing public transit projects, Brocato said he is unsure when the topic would come to the table.
Transit tweaks
In the meantime, Murdock said there are a few changes that can be made to the U.S. 280 routes — and ones that can be made on a shorter timeline.
Those changes include having buses stop more frequently on U.S. 280, which would be done by adding more buses to the route. Murdock said BJCTA will get new buses by the end of the year.
They also plan to work to build community trust in the transit system, Murdock said.
“We’ve been a system that people didn’t trust. They didn’t trust that the buses would be on time. They didn’t trust that there was sound management,” she said. “If we get people to trust more in the system, the management, the dream, we’ll get more people on.”
She also hopes to get more people thinking about innovative transit. Professionals working downtown want to be able to avoid traffic, she said, and millennials want to have reliable transportation without having to own a car. Both groups have similar needs, she said, and they are working on getting the message of public transit out to those groups.
“We need to have our community start dreaming,” she said. “Dream big for public transit.”
