By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
A bus system connecting Yachats to Florence has a new, two-year lease on life and is expanding service to Saturdays starting this month.
The Oregon Transportation Commission this summer awarded a $500,000 grant to the Lane Council of Governments to assume oversight of the pilot project linking Yachats and Florence with a rudimentary bus system.
The project had been under the auspices of the Lane Transit District since 2017. But startup planning and then delays getting a bus meant service did not start until September 2018.
The bus has been operating weekdays, making four round trips between Yachats and Florence. Lane Council of Governments wanted to add weekend service, said transportation planner Kelly Clarke, so it authorized bus operator River Cities Taxi of Florence to add Saturday service this month.
“It was really important to evaluate weekend service over the length of the pilot project,” Clarke said.
The new grant means the connector will run until July 2021. It provides a link between the Lincoln County bus system that originates in Newport with the Florence’s Rhody Express system. And, starting next year, the Yachats route will feed into new daily bus service between Florence and Eugene that will also be overseen by LCOG.
River Cities Taxi had the contract with Lane Transit for the initial bus service and also won the contract for the new, two-year program.
Clarke said her agency will examine seasonal fluctuations in ridership – it has been very low in the winter months – along with possible changes in where the bus stops. It also hopes to ramp up advertising and do a better job of getting the word out about the service.
“That’s the value of being in the pilot stage … we can continually evaluate,” Clarke said.
Ridership on the Florence-Yachats Connector is generally weak. It has ranged from a low of 32 passengers for the entire month of February, for example, to a high of 220 total passengers in August.
Clarke said there are currently no target ridership numbers to determine if the service is successful.
The 10-passenger bus used on the Yachats-Florence route has a wheelchair lift and a bicycle rack. Fares are $2.50 for one way; $5 for a round trip or all-day pass. It leaves a stop on West Third Street outside the Little Log Church and Museum at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. for the 45 minute drive to Florence.
The state is interested in seeing if bus service works between the two cities because until last September it had been the only stretch of U.S. Highway 101 in Oregon without scheduled buses.
LCOG’s application to run the Florence-Yachats Connector for another two years was ranked by Oregon Department of Transportation as No. 1 of 17 requests it funded.
The No. 2 request was LCOG’s $1.37 million request to establish daily bus service between Florence and Eugene. Clarke said her agency hopes to get that project rolling in late January or early February. It already has a 10-passenger bus donated by the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw.
“We’re really excited to get it started,” Clarke said. “And, we hope it creates additional ridership for the Connector as well.”