Holiday shuttle bus service begins to operate around The Woodlands

As Town Center prepares for the holiday rush, The Woodlands Township is hoping to cut down on congestion with some enhanced transit options.

The Holiday Shuttle Express will run for the second year around The Woodlands Mall and Market Street areas from Nov. 21 through Jan. 3 daily, 7:30 a.m. until 10:30 p.m.

Due to feedback from passengers last year, the shuttle added the off-peak hours, from 7:30 to 10 a.m. and 9 to 10:30 p.m., to better serve employees of Market Street and The Woodlands Mall.

The three festively-decorated shuttles will circulate around six stops — the Gold Parking Lot at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, Market Street, the Ice Rink, Tinseltown Movie Theater and the north and south areas of The Woodlands Mall — at 10-minute intervals.

The cost to operate the shuttles, about $112,000, is paid by Federal Transit Administration funding, which covers half, The Woodlands Township match of about $40,000 and a $16,000 contribution from the mall and Market Street.

Last year, the shuttle gave nearly 15,000 rides, traveling about 33,000 passenger miles.

The Woodlands is also planning to revamp its Waterway Trolley route to cut down on wait times.

The transportation committee will pilot a new route that cuts the current one from 4.1 miles to 3 miles and reduces circulation times from 20 to 15 minutes, resulting in an average seven or eightminute wait time.

The new route cuts out a stop at the South County Community Center, since the library stop is only a few feet away, and shifts the route from going through Market Street to stopping along Lake Robbins Drive.

The changes to the route do not affect the operational costs, which are $180,500 annually.

The committee plans to study the success of the new route before bringing it to The Woodlands Township Board of Directors to approve permanent changes.

Mike Bass, a Township board member on the transportation committee, hopes that these transit initiatives are just the first steps toward offering a more extensive public transit system in The Woodlands.

“This doesn’t get us to where we want to be on service levels,” Bass said.

The Woodlands owns a total of six trollies, but only pays for operating two of them, Bass said.

In order to achieve the committee’s goal for service, the Township board would have to approve funding for additional trollies, he added, which was voted out of the 2016 budget in August.

The Woodlands Township also funded a study conducted by the Houston-Galveston Area Council last year which identified possible scenarios for implementing a transit system in The Woodlands Town Center, as well as explored possibilities for extending service into the villages and expanding the existing Park and Ride service.

“There’s a little politics in play here,” Bass said. “A lot (of transit funding) got taken out of the budget. We need to see how we can convince the new board that these things do warrant attention and we ought to do more with the transit study than put it on a shelf.”

The ideas have been met with opposition on the Township board by members who don’t believe there is enough of a public demand to justify the millions of dollars it would take to launch the services.

“Residents are not asking for expensive, experimental transit solutions that disproportionately benefit Town Center,” said

John McMullan, a board

member who was re-elect-

ed on Nov. 3.