Next stop: Could a South Dakota city offer Mobile a lesson in public transit?

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - In 2018, the city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, faced a transit problem similar to what Mobile now is confronting.

Ridership was down and, according to Mayor Paul TenHaken, the city was about to go off a “financial cliff.” It was in danger of running out of money to run the bus system.

So TenHaken sought bids from other companies and hired the one that recently took over Mobile’s system, Via Transportation.

“We took a gamble and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to try this company called Via’ and were very transparent with the community and saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to we’re going to blow this thing up, and we’re going to try a whole new system and a whole new company,’” he told FOX10 News.

Via Transportation went to work, following the formula it is using in Mobile: Analyze the system, redesign routes and make changes. TenHaken said the company began offering an on-demand service, similar to the MoGo Rideshare program in Mobile.

Ridership spiked, jumping from fewer than 560,000 in 2023 to more than 715,000 last year. And it is on pace to beat that this year.

One of the keys, Mayor TenHaken said, has been enticing riders who do not have to use public transportation. He said he recognizes someone’s own car is hard to compete against in a city where traffic isn’t overwhelmingly congested and parking is plentiful.

“But the more we can get people to experience the system and use the system, we’re finding more people are actually choosing to ride it,” he said.

In many ways, Sioux Falls is a good case study for Mobile. It has a nearly identical population and faced similar ridership and financial challenges. And it hired the same company that is working to reform Mobile’s system.

But getting people to ditch their cars appears to be a hard sell in Mobile.

“I mean, I got a car,” said Keaton Perine, who lives in Jackson but works in Mobile. “I’m blessed. You know, I’m grateful to have a vehicle. So I can’t think of nothing in Mobile (to entice him to use the bus). Maybe, if I wanted to get a tour downtown?”

Like Perine, Mobile resident Gina Ghioto said she never has used the city’s Wave Transit System.

“None of the bus stops, I’ve noticed, have anywhere if it’s raining – they don’t have any kind of coverage or anything like that,” she said. “It’s completely missing. If you go travel anywhere else, they have much better public transportation.”

Those are precisely the kinds of folks Mobile Mayor Spiro Cheriogotis wants on the buses. And he said he believes trolley-style buses may be the way to do it.

“I like trolleys,” he told FOX10 News. “I like the feel of them. I think they’re more fun. I think more people will ride them, and in the end, we can have a much more robust system if more people choose to ride public transportation, even those people that have a car or two at home.”

The mayor has taken a personal interest in the redesign, often experimenting with Via Transportation’s route-planning tool.

“I like the idea of up-and-back routes,” he told FOX10 News, while looking at a hypothetical bus line displayed on a large screen. “You’re not having to make six changes.”

Via Transportation’s technology is a key feature of the success in Sioux Falls, according to the mayor there. TenHaken said real-time data allows transit planners to adjust based on changing ridership patterns.

He offered the example of a Walmart that Via had been serving only with its on-demand service.

“We have one Walmart way in the northwest part of the city that we found we were doing a bunch of on-demand rides there, and the data was telling us that,” he said. “So it made a lot more sense for us to add a fixed route there, and so we added the new fixed route there.”

Via will build bus routes based on a combination of input from the mayor, the company’s own analysis and a public survey. Alex Lavoie, Via’s chief operating officer, said the experience in other cities is that public transportation doesn’t just have to be for people who have no choice.

“If you build a great transit system, you can get people to choose the bus proactively,” he said.

Cheriogotis likes to dream big when it comes to public transportation – including just maybe having an actual rail streetcar line, as the city once had.

“I hope that we will have enough interest and ridership where we can prove that we can support an actual trolley line,” he said.

And the cost of something like that?

“A billion dollars,” he said. “Yeah. It’s about a billion dollars.”

NEXT STOP, PART I: Mobile struggles with empty buses and rising costs

HOW EASY IS IT TO TAKE THE BUS?