Metro plans for a return to ‘normal’ service

Having sharply reduced service and staffing during the pandemic, Metro officials now are readying for higher demand when school populations return to normal and downtown businesses call workers into the office.

“They are expecting a major return in August,” said Jim Archer, director of service planning and scheduling for Metropolitan Transit Authority.

That means Metro will spend the spring and early summer hiring bus operators and mechanics as it prepares to resume full service even as many realities of mass transit remain uncertain.

One looming concern is how to meet rising demand as daily trips increase from about 125,000, based on February numbers, to the 280,000 or more Metro carried prior to the COVID pandemic, while still providing for social distancing.

The issue is one of space on buses, if existing distancing requirements remain. Buses that could ferry 40 seated riders now have available space for 16.

As a result, meeting prepandemic demand under COVID conditions would be impossible with Metro’s fleet of approximately 700 40-foot buses and 90 60foot articulated buses.

“There is a point at which we run out of buses and run out of operators,” Archer said.

Metro officials said it remains unknown how many drivers and mechanics the agency would have to hire and when they would be needed.

“Our operations team is still evaluating what ‘normal’ service will look like in August, given the many public health protocols that will, no doubt, still be in place,” Metro spokeswoman Tracy Jackson said.

A variety of factors determine future transit demand, including when workers return to offices and normal commutes, when schools reopen and how parents choose for children to travel to campuses.

Much of the anticipated change in August, officials said, is driven by Texas’ ability to vaccinate residents against COVID and any strains that could pose resistant to vaccines.

Schools also play a huge role. While all area districts have returned to in-person classes, only about half the students are back in some schools, meaning tens of thousands are not yet traveling to campuses.

Ridership on buses and trains dropped practically overnight as businesses and schools shuttered a year ago, falling to around 100,000 daily trips. In response — and to stem its own anticipated financial losses and discourage travel

— Metro drastically cut its service and operated mostly on a Saturday schedule, reducing the frequency of buses.

The agency also culled its staff through attrition, opting not to replace employees who retired or quit and granting dozens of leaves of absence as workers stayed home to protect themselves or care for others. Total transit agency employees decreased from 4,276 in March 2020 to 3,901 in February.

Long waits

The loss of service rankled many of Metro’s riders, who faced longer waits at bus stops or for connections to other routes.

“You understand why they did what they did, but it hurts,” said Reggie Lewis, 25, as he waited Thursday evening on a northbound Route 50 bus along Broadway a few blocks north of Hobby Airport in Houston. “You wait and wait on a bus and then one might pass you by because it’s already full (at maximum capacity). You just hope another comes along.”

Bus service along the Broadway line went from buses arriving every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes, similar to other changes around the region.

Responding to the demand has meant frequent changes to schedules, as well as the number of buses operating some routes. Archer and others who oversee service planning have tweaked routes every two or three months, adding buses to crowded routes such as the 82 Westheimer line — the region’s most-used bus — in hopes riders would be spaced but still find a timely ride.

Other routes, meanwhile, saw sharp cuts in service, including Metro’s touted Silver Line bus rapid transit. The line, the region’s first BRT project that delivers a light rail-like service along Post Oak via large buses and dedicated lanes, launched at, perhaps, the worst time for transit in Houston in decades.

Meant to cater to office workers and shoppers in Uptown, the line’s core users have stayed away since it opened in August. In February, the line averaged 656 riders per day, placing it among the least-used bus routes in Metro’s system in terms of passengers per hour of operation. In more optimistic times as they planned the route, officials expected 14,850 to hop aboard each day.

Metro officials are proposing to reduce arrivals from every 10 minutes to every 12 minutes, which would allow them to drive fewer of the 60-foot buses and save both fuel and manpower.

Temporary cutbacks

Transit advocates stress the cutbacks are temporary. When workers return to offices and the vast majority of students head to class, transit service must return to normal operations, or as close to it as possible as quickly as possible, officials said. More riders means more buses in service, requiring more drivers. That, in turn, will mean more maintenance and the need for more mechanics, officials said.

Still, businesses and bus service will adapt to what happens, rather than dictate how travel changes.

“For now the virus is still pretty much running the show,” said Metro board member Jim Robinson of the economic recovery.