MOUNT VERNON – Knox Area Transit is looking to add service routes to Centerburg, Danville and Fredericktown by August, “or at least by the end of 2018,” transit program administrator Martin McAvoy told city council on Monday.
The idea is to increase workforce ridership, bringing workers from neighboring villages into Mount Vernon through KAT and also giving them a ride home at an affordable rate.
The proposed service would offer rides to and from Mount Vernon from 6 to 8:30 a.m., as well as from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Once in Mount Vernon, riders can either use the Mount Vernon Industrial Park Route (which is a part of the proposal), Mount Vernon Shuttle or Mount Vernon-Gambier Shuttle to arrive at work. It would cost $1 to use the Village Express Shuttle from the village, then $1 to use any of the city shuttles to reach one’s destination.
According to the proposal, it would realistically take a rider 45 minutes to arrive at work from their village. The Village Express Shuttle would stop in a village at 6 a.m., make it to Mount Vernon by 6:30 a.m., and then the rider could hop on a Mount Vernon shuttle and make it to work by 6:45 a.m.
Village Express shuttles would arrive in each village every hour, dropping off riders in Mount Vernon during the half-hour increments in between.
This proposed service has been in the works for KAT since last year, although now McAvoy has presented a proposal for funding the project.
The pilot period of this service will be six months, proposed to operate from August 2018 through January 2019. It will cost an estimated $79,840.
Between the three nine-passenger shuttles that will go to each of the villages and the Industrial Park Shuttle, which will connect the incoming workforce to Mount Vernon industries, KAT will be making 42 service loops per day.
McAvoy calculated that if each service loop averages three riders (all paying $1 apiece), KAT will be able to make fund $18,900 over six months through its farebox. This will be used to fund the project.
KAT will be spending $47,000 of its own money on the project, leaving $13,940 remaining to fund the service. McAvoy said that he has reached out to villages and the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) to secure the remaining funding.
“As we do the pilot with that, and hopefully it will be successful, then we’ll look at how we continue funding it moving forward,” McAvoy said. “There’s advertising options, there’s a lot of different options for funding that.”
McAvoy seemed excited about the opportunity to reach Mount Vernon’s neighboring villages, with the focus of bringing workers to the city.
“It’s to get people to and from work, and to get them there reliably and effectively and cost-efficiently,” McAvoy said. “That’s one of my goals moving forward is to continue doing that.”
McAvoy noted that KAT has struggled to reach the workforce demographic in the past, as most of its ridership comes from seniors citizens and students.
The proposed Express Route Service could also be accompanied by transit shelters in each village, McAvoy said.
Ridership rates increase, prices remain low
Before presenting his refined proposal for the Village Express Route service on Monday, McAvoy updated council on KAT’s recent surge in ridership.
Knox Area Transit made over 161,000 trips in 2017, which was up from over 145,000 in 2016.
Through the end of May, KAT had already made 62,644 trips in 2018, averaging approximately 620 trips per day. 48,131 of those trips were made in Mount Vernon, and 36,183 were made through the Mount Vernon Shuttle system, which lets riders go any place in Mount Vernon for $1.
In that total, 16,607 of those 2018 trips were made to businesses on Coshocton Road and 17,229 were made to Mount Vernon City Schools this spring.
KAT ran an average of 3.63 trips per hour last year, which is higher than the Ohio Department of Transportation standard of 2.88. The county’s transit service has also been more affordable than the ODOT standard, as the average cost per mile of riding in 2017 was $2.28 (the ODOT standard was $3.22.)
KAT is the public transportation provider for Knox County, operating under grants from the Federal Transit Administration, the Ohio Department of Transportation, the City of Mount Vernon and the Knox County Board of Commissioners. KAT offers a combination of demand responsive ‘door-to-door’ service (in and out of Knox County) and scheduled ‘point deviation’ shuttle service within Mount Vernon. Out of county service is also available.
