By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The operators of a bus system between Yachats and Florence have adjusted its schedule so that riders can now get all the way to Eugene in less than 4 hours instead of 12 hours.
Schedule changes for the Florence-Yachats Connector and the Eugene-Florence Connector took effect Monday.
The Lane Council of Governments took over the Florence-Yachats Connector last fall after winning a $500,000 state grant to continue the pilot program for two more years. At the same time it received a $1.37 million grant to establish daily service between Florence and Eugene that started in February.
But while it added Saturday service to what had been just weekday trips between Yachats and Florence, it did not coordinate schedules between the Yachats route and the new Eugene route.
That meant riding the bus between Yachats and Eugene – or visa versa – took 12 hours because of a poor connection in Florence.
That’s now changed.
The morning bus departures from Yachats have been moved up 30 minutes from 9 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. so that it arrives at Grocery Outlet in Florence at 9:20 — five minutes before a bus departs to Eugene. The Florence-to-Eugene bus makes stops in Mapleton, Veneta, downtown Eugene and arrives at Eugene’s Amtrak station at 11:05 a.m.
The trip between Eugene and Yachats is not quite as seamless.
A bus rider can leave the Eugene Amtrak station at 7:25 a.m. (or downtown Eugene at 7:32 a.m.) and arrive at Grocery Outlet in Florence at 9:26 a.m. The Florence-Yachats Connector doesn’t leave until 11 a.m., arriving in Yachats at noon.
Afternoon trips between Yachats and Florence have been pushed back 10 to 45 minutes, with afternoon departures to Florence from the Little Log Church in downtown Yachats at 3:45 p.m. and 6:35 p.m.
“The main goal was to help the Yachats community get into Eugene,” said Kate Wilson, the Lane Council of Governments transportation planner who helped work out the changes.
Wilson said the bus operator, River City Taxi of Florence and LCOG got the message that riders wanted a better morning link between the two systems in Florence.
“It’s now a pretty good connection,” she said. “We’re excited to provide this connectivity and ‘lifeline’ service for people.”
The agency now wants to see if the better connection helps improve ridership between Yachats and Florence, which has not been strong.
In 2019 while being overseen by the Lane Transit District, ridership ranged from a low of 32 passengers for the entire month of February, for example, to a high of 220 total passengers in August.
Ridership this year has been slightly better even during the coronavirus pandemic – but with the added Saturday service is measured over six days, not five. From March through May this year, total ridership was 283 people, compared with 249 for the same three months of 2019. June saw 149 riders.
“Ridership did not stop during the coronavirus shutdown,” said Wilson. “There’s always ridership … which means that people are taking it who don’t have other options.”
The Eugene to Florence route was expected to be popular, and has been, said Kelly Clarke, another LCOG planner. It had 308 riders in June, even as overall ridership in the Eugene-area bus system was down at least 50 percent.
“It’s a great ‘lifeline’ service,” Clarke said. “We didn’t go into this planning for something like covid … but now as things reopen a little bit we’re seeing ridership come back up.”
Enough of an increase, Clarke said, that the agency is seeking a grant to replace its 12-passenger bus with a 16-passenger vehicle.