Columbus, Georgia

Columbus Consolidated Government

Referrals From Mayor and Council-06/22/2004















Subject METRA Bus Service



Description Have the staff to do some research and determine the feasibility of

providing Metra bus service for evening hours. (Request of Councilor Woodson)



Have the staff to look at the possibility of providing a shuttle service from

the Parking Garage at the River Center to the Government Center from 9:00 a.m.

? 12:00 noon. (Request Councilor Allen)



Received From



Assigned To Lisa Goodwin, Isaiah Hugley



Please enter a date mm/dd/yy before any comments are added.

Response 06/29/04 It has been determined through route and cost analysis that

the number of people demanding systemwide night services would not justify

cost, especially in light of the fact that we no longer receive operating

assistance from the Federal Government. The majority of our riders use the

service for work, shopping or seeking medical needs during the hours of our

current service. We are however, looking at a way to implement a 'night owl

service' which could be a demand response service that will provide late night

service for those 3rd shift workers that we currently do not serve. This

service would be a service where the user will call us for a curb to curb pick

up to go to work at 11:00PM and they will use our regular service at the end of

their shift. This is the only void that has been identified in our service,

short of providing 5 minute service on every route. We will provide you with

more information as we get closer to identifying a funding source.



Issue #2: When the RiverCenter Parking Garage first opened, we provided

shuttle service from the garage to the government center (one block) 5 days per

week and 11.5 hours per day. We soon reduced these hours to 4 hours per day, 5

days per week due to low ridership using a 15 passenger van. Because this

service was implemented with funds not budgeted, it did create an overage in

overtime funds. To provide this service at that time, cost us about $1,000 per

week in overtime to start and the low ridership did not justify the cost, so

the service was discontinued.