From Director of Service Development, Adam Harrington
For the last two years, we’ve been unable to offer as much service as we’d like because of an ongoing operator shortage.
But recent hiring success will allow us to make some targeted improvements in June, a positive development we hope to build on as ridership continues to grow.
As always, these changes were informed by customer feedback and the belief that, with limited resources, we should prioritize serving customers who face the biggest challenges when it comes to transportation.
We are also moving forward with an eye toward maintaining our strong reliability, which is why we are making relatively modest changes we are confident can be sustained while recruitment efforts continue.
The improvements taking effect on June 17 are an important step in the right direction.
They are also a reminder of the larger conversation we are having about how we should prioritize future service changes as more resources become available in the coming years.
Thank you to everyone who completed our Network Now survey, which will help inform how we build our service in the next five years. And thank you to everyone who successfully advocated for dedicated transit funding at the Capitol.
While we have a lot yet to learn, the clear message we are receiving is that residents across the Twin Cities value frequent and reliable transit and want us to provide more of it.
We are eager to meet the demand through continued improvements to regular route service, investments in speed and reliability, and a build-out of our planned bus rapid transit and light rail network.
Thank you to everyone who has stayed with us through all the challenges of the pandemic and our operator shortage. Together, we have reached an encouraging turning point and can look forward optimistically to June and all that will follow.
We're hiring!
Learn more about becoming a bus operator at Metro Transit at metrotransit.org/drive