City of Eau Claire looking ahead to possible changes of transit routes
EAU CLAIRE—In the upcoming months, the city of Eau Claire will be reviewing recommendations for their transit consultant to focus on identifying possible changes to routes to increase ridership without adding new costs.
'It's a part of our transit development plan,' said the city's new transit manager Katrina Running. 'We are doing an update on it and it's a pretty big update, but we're working with a consultant called Via. They also come up with suggestions for the future, like expansion of service.'
Overall, Running said, the goal is not simply to boost profit but to increase ridership to enable the city to provide better service for everyone.
'A typical business would want to make a bunch of revenue, but that's now how transit or city services work,' she said. 'It's basically how much can we provide for a set amount. We want people to use it.'
The last time the transit development plan was updated was in 2020, but after COVID, ridership went down.
'We've been slowly increasing to get back up to what it was before,' Running said. 'I don't know if we're back to the point where we were before, but some of our routes have been the same for quite a long time. Maybe the businesses along the routes have changed so it doesn't make sense anymore for the routes to stay exactly the same.'
Via primarily aims to analyze the existing system and offer cost neutral changes.
'They look at all our data and then they create recommendations based on inefficiencies and recommend tweaks,' she said. 'They've done outreach already. They've held stakeholder groups, and they had a survey. 450 people took the survey. About half were riders and the other half non-riders. What they present is both data-driven and has input from the public.'
Running said the timing between the development plan and the opening of the new transit center downtown is a timely coincidence, stating the plan is typically updated every five years.
'It's unrelated, but it is good timing,' she said.
The next step will be a work session group with the City Council which is occurring next Tuesday. Beyond that, there are no set dates yet but there will be future opportunities for community input before any changes happen.
Those looking for any updates to the transit routes can visit ecbus.org. From there, they can download an app simply known as Transit App.
'That helps plan trips,' she said. 'And it tells you if it would be quicker to walk or bike.'
A standard fare is $1.75 one way.
UW-Eau Claire students can ride for free and there are also income-qualifying reduced fares.
'They can pay exact change or they can buy a pass,' she said. 'We sell passes at all of the Festival Foods in Eau Claire.'
She also said the central maintenance facility on Forest Street sells passes. Currently the Transit App does not provide a way to pay for fares.
'It's always good to look for efficiencies and plan ahead if we are in a situation to expand service in the future,' she said. 'Our community changes and we need to be able to adapt to meet the needs of it.'
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