6:00: Morning News

Huntington-Charleston bus route on life support

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A public transportation link between Charleston and Huntington may not be around much longer. The line covering the 50 miles between the state’s two largest cities opened up in 2009 and ridership appeared to grow, but in the last two years that has not been the case.

The daily runs between the two cities were handled by the respective city’s transit bus systems, Charleston’s KRT and Huntington’s TTA.

“When we started, ridership built for the first three years,” said Kanawha Rapid Transit Assistant General Manger Doug Harley. “We were getting up to over 40 people a day on just the KRT half.  Yesterday we did 16 people.”

Hartley said the average is now down to 16 to 18 riders daily which was less than half of the peak of the travel.  He was at a loss to explain the drop in ridership.  Hartley added, the federal money which helped launch the program is now nearly all gone.

“All of the federal demonstration grants and the state money that was allocated to do this test project have all expired,” Harley said. “The burden now falls strictly on KRT and TTA to fund it 100 percent.”

Hartley said there has been no decision on the future of the service, but he admitted it didn’t look as if it would last past this fall.

“It is on the table for discussion for elimination sometime in the fall,” he said. “But Huntington hasn’t had a public hearing yet and until they have a public hearing, it’s hard for us to make a determination.”

Hartley said the route, which provided daily service between the state capitol and Huntington’s Pullman Square, with stops in Barboursville and Teays Valley, began as a demonstration route to see if it would build.  He believes the route has probably course of popularity.





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