Citylink ridership keeps growing

As Citylink ridership continues to skyrocket, the system is growing out of its existing setup and expanding both facilities and services.

Over the next few months the bus service will build a new maintenance facility and headquarters, buy new buses and begin picking up people with mobility issues at their homes.

“We’ve just about doubled in a year’s time,” said Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization Chairman Lynn Humphreys.

Citylink Transportation Manager Alan Eirls said the monthly number of riders increased by 5,000 over just the past month.

March 2008 ridership was at 29,271, up from 17,233 in March 2007.

“It’s only going to get greater as we reach the summer months and kids start jumping the buses to the movies and the beach,” Eirls said.

Success has only made managers of the two-year-old Citylink bus service look for ways to make it even better.

A first place to start is with the buses themselves. Those traveling routes between the Coeur d’Alene Reservation, Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls and Hayden have 200,000 miles on them.

Eirls said Citylink has ordered two new buses at a cost of $130,000 each. The older buses will remain in service as fill-ins when the new buses are undergoing maintenance.

The bus system also recently won two federal grants — one to build the maintenance facility and another to begin an on-demand system to cater to riders who can’t get to bus stops and need to be picked up directly at home.

The $588,000 grant coupled with a $139,000 local match will be used to build the maintenance facility at a location in Worley. Eirls said it will have five bus bays, including a wash area and staff offices upstairs. It should be completed this summer.

The second grant is for the on-demand system and several bus shelters in the Worley and Plummer areas. The $225,000 is enough to pay for five shelters and one van, Eirls said.

The details of that on-demand system haven’t been finalized, but the basic premise is to help riders who have difficulty getting to bus stops.

A Citylink driver will pick eligible riders up at their homes and then transport them to one of the shelters to wait for a regularly scheduled bus. If it makes more sense because of distance or timing some riders may be taken directly to their destinations, Eirls explained.

Many will just be people trying to get to the Benewah Market or tribal offices.

“Scheduling will be key,” he said. “You’re going to want to make as many progressive, short hops as possible.”