A new public transit service that launched in Twin Falls a month ago is already seeing steady interest.
The service, run by the transit company Downtowner, operates like Uber, allowing people to request rides through an app or by making a phone call.
On the first day, the program’s seven vans made 30 pickups in the city limits, and more than 3,000 rides have been provided since.
The results blew past the city’s expectations for uptake in the first month, said Maxine Durand who manages the RIDE TFT program for the city, and who started in her role just about a week before the launch. She said, though it’s not a competition, the initial demand has been even higher than for a similar program in Idaho Falls.
The vans are dropping people off at various destinations, Durand said.
“Consistently, the top ten have a lot of grocery shopping, a lot of medical appointments,” she said. “We're clearly serving a lot of people who otherwise wouldn't have rides.”
Each ride costs $3 per group and $1 for people with disabilities or those over the age of 60. About half of the rides so far have been eligible for the discount, and the percentage is even higher for those who book rides ahead of time.
“I think that shows that, while we're happy to have fewer cars on Blue Lakes [Blvd], that's not the only population that we're serving, and it's definitely not the crux of public transit ridership,” Durand said.
The pilot, funded by CARES act dollars, lasts two years. By then, Durand foresees that the city will need to double its fleet to meet increasing demand and keep wait times short. She told the Twin Falls City Council that additional federal grants might extend the program, but that the city may need to allocate future funding to it.
“I think that the numbers back up that the demand is there,” she said. “We need to make sure that we're acting in a way that plans for the future and not just the numbers that I'm showing you today."
With the upcoming school year, Durand said she expects students to use the service to get to after-school activities, and College of Southern Idaho students to rely on it for getting to class.
Find reporter Rachel Cohen on Twitter @racheld_cohen
Copyright 2023 Boise State Public Radio
