Re-Thinking Public Transit as “Micro-CED” with Wilson NC Leading the Way

Community and Economic Development – Blog by UNC School of Government

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Re-Thinking Public Transit as “Micro-CED” with Wilson NC Leading the Way

By Maureen Berner

Published July 20, 2022

Across North Carolina, CED professionals’ ears may have perked up over the weekend if they were listening to national public radio. The town of Wilson, N.C. was featured in the story, “On-demand shuttles are replacing buses in some areas.” Towns across North Carolina are turning the idea of mass transit on its head, opting for micro-transit instead. The reporter described micro-transit as “…where residents get service when and where they need it, rather than by waiting at a bus stop,” explaining RIDE, Wilson’s new version of public transit. Wilson, replacing its buses with the Mobility on Demand (MOD) ride-service. With a $1.50 fare, anyone can ride wherever they need to go – school, work, shopping, medical appointments, government offices, or to visit family.  The change saw city transit ridership more than doubling in two years. The Wilson program was also covered in the Charlotte Ledger.

The larger issues raised by this successful experiment are key for CED professionals. How can local government make it easier for citizens to be mobile – a boon for citizens, businesses, government and community services alike? Local governments commonly provide on-demand services for special populations – for example, older adults or those needing para-transport. These can be contracted out or provided directly by the local government. With the common development of ride-sharing services, however, technology and business expansion have made it much easier to expand on-demand ride service to all, challenging the dominance of the traditional bus systems. For smaller cities, towns and rural counties, this may be a game-changer.

Orange County, N.C. started its micro-transit service last year, focused on the northern end of the county, serving rural areas and the town of Hillsborough (pop. 8,000) on Friday evenings and during the day on Saturdays. The program, called Mobility on Demand, was featured on the radio as well and is fare free. While the hours are limited for the fare-free option, the County uses a mix of funding to support a variety of no-fare or relatively low-fare demand response services for everyone. Large and small units of N.C. local government are looking at this approach. Wake County has a similar program.

Similar pilots have been explored over the last decade across the country, supported by federal funding through the Federal MOD Sandbox grant program. The focus on workability of micro-transit efforts is not limited to rural areas. Los Angeles and the Puget Sound region in Washington state tested MOD-style programs to deal with the first mile/last mile barriers to using public transportation. The work was tracked in a series of research and evaluation reports by the non-partisan, non-profit transportation think tank, Eno Center for Transportation. The research was limited somewhat by the local context and differing local goals for the program, a common problem in evaluating an approach across pilot communities.

The Federal Transportation Administration has been studying these types of programs for years.  Recent evaluations are available for a MOD pilot for para-transit in Florida (Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) Public-Private-Partnership for Paratransit, April 2022) and  MOD for the California Bay area (City of Palo Alto and Bay Area, December, 2021)   The programs are not without criticism. Can they keep up with demand for the service? Could they result in greater congestion?

The PSTA hoped its pilot would improve user wait times, travel times, accessibility, and mobility and its impact on system operating cost and payment methods, and overall, it did. The Bay area study focused on reducing overwhelming use of single occupancy vehicles. And it had positive results too. Private sector business partners and subsequent jobs were supported.

“(the pilot) …aimed to develop two key concepts — an integrated trip planning platform and a cash-out system…in the cities of Cupertino, Menlo Park, Mountain View, and Palo Alto. The evaluation analyzed the project’s impacts on SOV use, commute vehicle miles traveled (VMT), energy consumption and emissions, public transit ridership, and accessibility and mobility of lower-income employees. Overall, the results of the analysis showed…the pilot program reduced SOV commuting in the Bay Area, which led to a decrease in total commute VMT, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions. Additionally, the pilot encouraged employees to use alternative modes of transportation and enhanced more positive attitudes toward public transit (Executive Summary, p. xiii.)”

The goal of improving the commute of folks in San Francisco may not align with needs of small towns in rural North Carolina, however. A 2020 study from Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation stressed the need for MOD programs to “put citizens front and center.” Unless transit innovation focuses on reducing inequalities as a goal, gains will not flow to those communities and people who need the services most, a point raised by LivingCities.org almost a decade ago in a study about mobility (of people) programs as vital for economic opportunity and economic mobility in low-income communities.

The potential CED benefits of MOD were the striking feature of the Wilson program. If a student missed a morning bus, rather than missing a full day, a ride could still allow the student to get to school, affordably and timely, for most of the school day. A significant portion of the ridership use the Wilson program to get to and from work. Having a ride can mean having a job. The impact of a sudden car repair diminishes, as does the time off needed for a caregiver to get a family member to a doctor’s appointment. The hope is that access to all sorts of social services can be increased. Could MOD take transportation barriers out of the equation for community growth?