Officials from the Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation Authority say the new bus routes to start this fall will be simpler, more consistent and easier for bus riders to understand.
The new routes will be made available early next week and will start Oct. 11.
"For example, buses are leaving Montgomery at 35 after the hour, basically all day long, where before one might have left at 20 after the hour, one at 25 after the hour, another at 15 another at 35," said Doug Hartley, KRT's assistant general manager said. "It was just a hodge podge."
In all, KRT eliminated three routes and added two. They added five hours of service time on Sundays and took away some time during weekdays. In all, the KRT is eliminating 20 hours a day of driving time across all routes, Hartley said.
"We're going to save money on this, and that was part of the goal, [figure out] how to operate tomorrow on today's resources," Hartley said.
There will also be better access to places including Charleston Area Medical Center's Memorial Hospital in Kanawha City, the University of Charleston and the Southridge shopping area.
The five main bus routes, which carry 79 percent of KRT passengers, will mostly stay the same, Hartley said. Those routes will be more frequent and consistent, he said.
One of the three canceled routes, to Montgomery and Eskdale, was cut on July 3, Hartley said. The other two - Route 4, which goes up Woodward Drive, and Route 12, which serves Garrison Avenue and the Hillsdale area - will be eliminated on Oct. 11.
The route changes are just one change that was recommended to the KRT by Maine-based consulting firm Marlene Connor Associates. The consulting firm has been working with the KRT for two years.
"[The route system] had been operating how it's been operating for many decades and in the process of doing that the routes had been developed and changes and things added here and there and it became sort of a big mass of stuff," Marlene Connor said. The goal of the changes is to make routes simpler and more consistent, she said.
"Our charge was try to update the system to try to move it along to the next century but to do it in a way that was mindful of resources that we had," she said.
In July, the KRT rolled out a new flat-rate fare system. All one-way fares are now $1.50 regardless of where a person boards or rides to. All-day passes are $2.50. The rate change eliminated zone and transfer charges.
The KRT is also working to make its bus routes and fares available on Google Transit.
"It's already up," Hartley said. "It's just being fine-tuned behind the scenes so we haven't announced it."
The technology will allow riders to search Google for a destination where they want to travel to and then choose an option that lets them see bus routes and fares to get to that destination.
"People just use their iPhones for everything," Marlene Connor said.
The KRT has been working with the Rahall Transportation Institute on the Google Transit project, Hartley said. Officials hope to have everything in place with the Google Transit project by Oct. 11.
New schedules and route changes will be available by early next week at KRT stations and the Transit Mall.
Reach Lori Kersey at Lori.kersey@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1240 or follow @LorikerseyWV.