How Much Can A Public Transportation System Cost?
A few weeks ago, MARTY staff explained to the commission that fourteen buses will need to be replaced at $500,000 each by 2027. That is $7 million for a system that had 92,669 trips in FY 2023. It costs the county $32.62 per trip to deliver a service that appears to be used by very few people.
Why is it Indian River County, a county like Martin County in size and demographics, can have 1,239,241 trips at $4.35 per trip? It is purely a matter of rider convenience by being free, running more hours a day, and having routes devised so that 92% of the public are within ¾ of a mile of a bus stop.
Martin County’s service runs less frequently with fewer routes. For a transit system to be embraced by the public, it must have more than just buses. It needs to have convenient stops so that most passengers can easily walk from the bus stop to their destinations carrying their packages. Some people are literally miles from the nearest transit stop.
The Martin County United Way’s pilot project, Rides United, uses Lyft as their provider and gives individual rides to residents. In the first nine months, they have had 2044 rides costing $18.10 per ride. If we use 92,669 trips MARTY provided at the same cost that is $1,677,308.89 without owning a piece of equipment or having employees.
Is using a private service instead of a public one on a grand scale possible? Probably not. However, using the private sector to deliver transit within Indiantown, Stuart, and the CRAs probably so. We keep the fixed routes like from Indiantown to Stuart and a Federal Highway Route with only very few bus stops. At the bus stops there could be a pre-arranged private service booked by the county available for the “last mile.” It may be possible to reduce our costs and increase our demand.
On the MARTY routes, people could use those for free but book a private vehicle and pay $5.00. The Lyft or any other such service could be waiting at the end of the route to take them within the control area of Stuart, Indiantown or the CRA. The county would pick up the difference over $5.00 and all booking would be done online.
We need to try many different pilot programs to see what increases ridership without increasing the amount of money to cover the shortfall. I am not pretending to be a public transit expert. I do know that what we are doing now is not working.
