City Council - Regular Meeting

Bristol is on the move Monday through Friday, 615 a.m. to 6 p.m. aboard the Bristol-Tennessee Transit. And in an effort to improve efficiency and enhance public safety, some changes are coming to the city bus system that has been a convenient, affordable source of transportation for more than 40 years. Beginning July 1st, a one-way fare will increase from 60 cents to a dollar, mirroring the rate charged by other municipal systems throughout the region.

Previously there was some confusion about what the fares were. It wasn't consistent across programs. So what we've done is we've made the fare consistent a dollar per trip across programs. So it's a dollar for a trip on the fixed route, a dollar for a trip on paratransit, and a dollar for a trip on job access. The only real difference with that is on our fixed route we have the option of a reduced fare for individuals who are eligible for that. On the fixed route, if you are a senior, 65 or older, if you're a military veteran, individuals with disabilities, individuals with a Medicare or Medicaid card, they would be eligible for the reduced fare, which is 50 cents any time. What we would just ask is that they show either their Medicare or Medicaid card, some sort of form of identification that shows that they're 65 or older. proof that they were military veteran, things like that. And then once we have that documentation, we'll provide a little key tag that says that they are reduced fare eligible. So the next time they get on the bus, all they have to do is show that little key tag.

Fixed Route Service provides service throughout the city with stops at popular destinations.

So we have three fixed routes here in the city of Bristol, Tennessee. Our Penn-Hickory route serves over toward the King University area, Fairmount neighborhood, down to Virginia Avenue, the food city there, and then back to fort shelby towers the south side route covers the south side obviously of bristol going down to the food city on volunteer parkway and the walmart and then the hospital route goes over to bristol regional medical center and the pinnacle so we try to serve areas that have like grocery stores medical centers shopping centers we try to serve the areas that have a a high residency. So we have a lot of people who live in a certain area that want to go to a certain area. So we try to cover places like Shelby Towers, Edgemont Towers, neighborhoods that have a lot of people live in there, people that might need transportation to go to shopping centers, medical centers, things like that. And it's pretty reasonably priced. You can get almost anywhere you need to go in the city for a dollar. That's a pretty good deal.

All fixed route buses are ADA accessible, but paratransit buses are also available for those who need additional assistance.

So our paratransit service is for individuals who are functionally unable to ride the fixed route. And our paratransit service kind of serves as a safety net for those individuals. So if they can't ride the fixed route because maybe They use a wheelchair and the bus can't stop in front of their home to deploy the lift. They need to be picked up like in their driveway, that kind of thing. We do have the paratransit service for that. And it's an origin to destination service, which means that we pick people up at their homes and take them directly to their destination. And then we also have a job access service that takes people to and from their employment within the city limits of Bristol, Tennessee. And that's for people who the fixed route will not take them to their employment. It's either outside the hours or outside the area that's served by the fixed route.

No changes in paratransit or job access services are planned, except for the hours of operation. Paratransit will operate from 6.15 to 6 p.m., the same as the fixed route bus service, while job access hours will vary based on need. Saturday service for both programs is being eliminated.

So one of the schedule changes that we've made is that we are eliminating Saturday service for paratransit and job access. And the reason for that is just our ridership has really declined on Saturdays and a lot of our funding is based on our performance statistics. And when we're only having like two boardings or three or four boardings on Saturday, That doesn't result in very good performance statistics, so it's really better for us if we have high ridership, and our high ridership happens during the weekdays, so it's really more beneficial for us to serve larger amounts of people on those weekdays.

The final change that will go into effect on July 1st will result in a slight adjustment to the Penn-Hickory route.

So currently the Penn-Hickory route goes through Industrial Drive and it crosses an on-grade railroad crossing. So what we're doing is we're gonna have the route continue south on Route 394 and then it will turn onto Weaver Pike from there and we're eliminating the Industrial Drive portion of the route to eliminate that on-grade railroad crossing. It's a safety thing. We want to avoid the bus crossing railroad tracks anytime we can. Here in Bristol, that's hard to do because we do have railroad tracks at various points in the city, but this is one where it was pretty easy for us to eliminate that from our route.

Each of the changes were approved by City Council and are designed to streamline operations and ensure regulations established by the Federal Transit Administration and the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Two major funding sources for Bristol-Tennessee Transit are followed.

Those agencies reimburse a lot of our operating and capital expenses and we get that funding because we follow the regulations. There are a lot of requirements for transit service and they're very specific and we have to do a lot of reporting on our performance data and things like that. So we get a lot of funding from the FTA and TDOT because we do a lot of reporting and follow a lot of rules. So the city ends up paying a very small fraction of what it actually costs to provide the service.

To recap the changes effective July 1st,

We're eliminating the Saturday service for our paratransit and job access programs. We're establishing our paratransit hours of service at 6.15 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. We're increasing the base fare to a dollar across our transit programs, fixed route, paratransit, and job access. We're offering reduced fare of 50 cents to reduced fare eligible riders, and then we're modifying our Penn-Hickory route to eliminate the on-grade railroad crossing on Industrial Drive.

For additional information about these changes or the services provided by Bristol-Tennessee Transit, please call 423-989-5688 or visit bristolTN.gov slash transit.

Thank you.