City officials are reconsidering a plan to issue free Shuttle-UM bus passes to residents of College Park after data revealed the pricey service was not widely used by residents in the past two years.
The partnership between the city and the Department of Transportation Services to allow city residents to ride Shuttle-UM buses began in September 2008, when the city paid DOTS $10,000 to issue 500 free bus passes to city residents. Of those 500, a little more than half — 257 — were actually issued.
The following September, the city purchased twice the number of passes at half the price due to a change in the bus routes that served city residents. Still, only 340 of those 1,000 passes were issued to city residents.
This year, DOTS plans to charge the city $10,000 to allow up to 1,000 city residents to ride Shuttle-UM buses.
DOTS Associate Director Darryl Johnson said in an e-mail to the city that the price increase for the bus passes is due to DOTS reinstating a route that covers the south Route 1 corridor, a route that was discontinued last year, resulting in the price reduction to $5,000.
“The restored route will now extend to the New Carrollton Metro station, which provides more service than at any point in the past,” Johnson wrote in an e-mail.
Although ridership records for residents using the buses are not completely accurate because not all bus drivers check IDs of riders entering the buses, ridership among city residents on buses has been low, officials said. In the last year, not including data from August, only 289 city residents have rode DOTS buses, according to DOTS ridership records.
City officials polled some city residents who used the bus pass program to gauge its effectiveness.
Of the 30 residents who responded to the city’s e-mail, statements about ridership habits varied from those who said they used the buses multiple times a week to others who said they only rode the Shuttle-UM buses a few times a year. The most popular route for city residents was the bus that runs to the College Park Metro station.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, City Manager Joe Nagro said the city plans to talk to DOTS about lowering the cost of the service to $5,000 by possibly cutting the number of allotted bus passes in half to 500.
“At this point, we can certainly talk to [DOTS]. I suggest we go back to the 500 passes. We’ve only budged $5,000 for this fiscal year,” Nagro said.
In September 2008, when the program started, DOTS Director David Allen said the collaboration was benefiting both the university and the city.
“Any time the university and the city can come up with a win-win situation, it’s good,” Allen told The Diamondback in 2008.
DOTS officials did not return calls for comment Wednesday.
mccarty at umdbk dot com
