TRANSIT PROVIDER sees drop in riders.

Federal aid, uncertain state, local income create complicated financial future

SPRINGDALE — Ridership on Ozark Regional Transit buses nosedived in March as the shutdown from the covid-19 pandemic kicked in and people started staying home.

The financial outlook for the transit provider is mixed with help coming from federal relief, but state and local income becoming more uncertain.

Ridership in all the major cities is down and, overall, ridership on the system has fallen by one-half.

Ridership was up 8% in February, said Kendall Luallen, IT and system information director. Regular daily activities and businesses started closing mid-March and ridership declined, he said.

“As a system, we were right at 1,000 passengers a day at the beginning of March and now, in April, we’re down to 486, about a 51% drop.”

Joel Gardner, executive director, said the transit provider doesn’t anticipate changes in the level of service being provided.

“Most of our routes are single-bus routes, so the only real way for us to reduce service would be to reduce service hours, starting later in the day or ending earlier in the evening,” Gardner said. “We are finding that we are having riders throughout the entirety of the day; it’s just that we are not having as many riders.”

Gardner said ORT recently received about $15,000 from the Arkansas Department of Transportation for covid-related expenses. It was used to buy personal protective equipment, including masks and respirator safety masks and sanitizer to wipe down the buses.

“I can tell you right now, we’ve bought isopropyl alcohol by the 55-gallon drum,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration recently announced $25 billion is being made available for public transportation systems nationwide. President Donald Trump signed the bill March 27, and the money is backdated so it can be used for expenses beginning Jan. 20.

Federal authorities authorized almost $8 million of that money for public transit providers in Northwest Arkansas. Ozark Regional and University of Arkansas Razorback Transit are eligible to apply.

Ozark Regional could get up to $4.2 million for capital projects and operating expenses, with no local match required. The transit has applied, but Gardner said he’s still trying to figure out what the rules and restrictions are going to be.

“The descriptions are changing right now on almost a weekly basis for what it can be used for,” Gardner said.

Revenue the transit earns from running shuttles for Razorback football games, about $75,000 a year, remains in limbo, and the money from car rental taxes appears to be drying up because car rentals have crashed in Arkansas during the pandemic, Gardner said.

Ron Wood can be reached by email at rwood@nwadg.com or on Twitter @NWARDW.