Good-bye to empty MAX buses and hello to Birmingham On-Demand

Chris Nanni
Chris Nanni

Today’s guest columnist is Chris Nanni.

We see it every day – those hugely expensive MAX buses—trundling down the street carrying one or two passengers.

It looks like another example of our public dollars not being deployed in the most efficient manner.

Does it make sense to take a half-million-dollar piece of equipment, operate it at low capacity on fixed routes, while contributing to traffic congestion and air pollution?

Well say good-bye to the status quo and hello to efficiency and creativity.

The Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority (BJCTA) and the City of Birmingham are turning public transit on its head.

People complain that Alabama has an insufficient public transportation system. What many don’t realize is that we are one of only three states that prohibits state funding for public transportation (the other two being Hawaii and Nevada). Interestingly, our state constitution was amended in 1952 (around the time of the Montgomery bus boycotts) to exclude funding of public transportation.

This legacy of not funding public transportation means that we have become a car dependent region. Over the past decades jobs have moved out of the inner city to the suburbs while access to public transportation hasn’t followed. Research from the Brookings Institute shows that if you have a car or reliable transportation, you will have access to 100 times the number of jobs within a 30 minute commute…100 times.

Not surprisingly, in local surveys transportation is identified as one of the top barriers to opportunity, amenities and services that directly impact our quality of life. If we are concerned with economic development and want to build an inclusive economy, then we have to focus on developing a more accessible transportation network.

Adding a bus – at the cost of over $500K – to a fixed route with limited ridership is not the answer to our dilemma. The long-term solution is adequate funding. In the interim, we have to seek creative solutions.

That is why, in 2019, the Community Foundation and our Catalyst Fund donors entered into a partnership with Via Transportation and the City of Birmingham to provide funding for the launch of a microtransit pilot service called Birmingham On-Demand.

The pilot, which launched in December 2019, was set up to serve an eight-mile zone encompassing downtown and the Westside of Birmingham. The zone is serviced by seven professionally driven vans that utilize a sophisticated ride sharing software that connects drivers with passengers. Riders use an app to request a ride and can be picked up and dropped off anywhere within the zone. There are no fixed routes, and each ride costs only $1.50.

Since its launch, Birmingham On-Demand has had a consistently high satisfaction rating with pick up times averaging less than 10 minutes. Passengers using microtransit have seen an hour-and-a-half point-to-point bus ride now take about 15 minutes. As one rider states, “Birmingham On-Demand is a very economical and convenient means of transportation that allows you the comfort, feel, and flexibility of having your own car without the hassles of having 10 stops between your destination.”

In fact, Birmingham On-Demand has proven so successful – surpassing 200,000 rides over the last two years – that there has been a call to expand the coverage area. In response, the City of Birmingham added 19 additional neighborhoods east of the airport to the coverage area in November 2022.

Birmingham On-Demand now covers around 22% of the City’s geography. Furthermore, the BJCTA recently announced that it has coordinated with the City to expand hours in the downtown zone while expanding microtransit in additional service areas.

At the Community Foundation, our mission is to be a catalyst for transformational change in our region. We are excited to be a part of this innovative solution for transportation in our region. With creative approaches like microtransit along with Birmingham’s recent addition of the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT), our community is thinking creatively and collaborating to accelerate positive, region-level change.

Chris Nanni has served as the President and CEO of the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham for the past nine years. As the largest foundation in the state, the Community Foundation works with philanthropists, nonprofits and civic leaders igniting passion for transformational change in our five-county region. He lives with his wife, Allison, and three children in Homewood.

David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown.  He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).

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Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@amsher.com.

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20 thoughts on “Good-bye to empty MAX buses and hello to Birmingham On-Demand”

  1. Thank you Chris for writing. This is a good example of how vestiges of racist laws—no funding of mass transit—has real world impact on poor people. And, this is why government has to fix problems that past racists policies created.

    1. I agree. And what has a negative impact on the poor soon has a negative impact on everyone.

  2. Congratulations on the transit progress. Businesses need employees, especially these days, and people without cars need jobs. Hopefully the various transportation services can be better funded and consolidate them. The $500,00 buses lumbering around town with a couple of riders is still grossly inefficient. Good work, keep going!

    1. Michael,
      What aIways say is if the buses ran more often, they wouldn’t be almost empty. Why take a bus if it only comes once an hour (every two hours on Saturday) and it might not come at all? We had a planning director at BJCTA about 10 years who said that when buses run every half hour, that’s when they start to work for people.

      Another reason buses are often almost empty is BJCTA has to send buses to the municipalities who pay for them. So for example, the #43 Zoo bus mostly serves Mountain Brook, and hardly anyone takes it. When I have been on it I have never seen another rider. We are grateful that Mountain Brook wants to support our system, but this is one of the reasons that BJCTA is only about a third as efficient as Huntsville. It costs over $13 for every ride that a passenger takes on a BJCTA bus. It’s only about $4.50 in Huntsville, but that’s at least partly because their agency only serves that city. That is true of Montgomery’s and Mobile’s, too. Our agency attempts to serve all of Jefferson County and even a little of Shelby.

      1. Absolutely correct. In the broader picture for the future, that information should be taken into account. This aspect of the calculation can not be left out while expecting to get any progress.

        I have been to, lived in, and visited cities where the evidence is is palpable: Washington, DC; Boston, MA, Vancouver, BC. The use of buses , and even some trollies. Main line bus systems may run as frequently as every five minutes, especially in times of high use. In Washington, Vancouver and Atlanta the transit movement eventually led to the creation of underground fast rail systems, and commuter rail systems. Also connect to air and rail transport as well Of course there is no need to mention that those are metropolitan areas much larger than Birmingham, so it is still very appropriate to look closer to home, eg. Huntsville.

        I wonder what would happen to the traffic on 280 and the freeways if busses ran every five to ten minutes?

        1. Thanks! Oh, yes I believe more frequent transit would be a big help on 280. That is actually one of the most used routes in our system. At least I always find there are a number of people on the bus whenever I take it. When people found out it was running more often at peak use times, I’m sure even more would take it. I don’t think Birmingham On-Demand could help much with that, because each vehicle carries only a handful of people. Fixed route is best for this problem.

  3. I just wonder how many opportunities pass us by daily because we don’t get enough votes in Montgomery – to bring in more productive and higher paying jobs – a better lifestyle – fixing our much need infrastructure- maintaining our Colleges and Schools – a modern day Transit System – a true International Airport? We are thankful for substantial
    State funding, but, it’s time to LET BIRMINGHAM BE FREE to reclaim its
    rightful designation as THE MAGIC CITY!

  4. Ultimately well coordinated land use and transportation local, metropolitan, state, federal and international are essential in the bigger picture of future planning. This creative thinking is but one step, but it is a good positive one. And it is most important to consider how it serves the people who use it.

    Keep going!
    Roy Knight

  5. Good thoughts, all. Now, how do we frame the arguments so they really get the attention of people who biggest worries are parking and congestion, rather than, say job loss, because of a late or missed bus? We’ve been hearing and sharing the numbers about economic benefits for 30 years now, but continue in the exclusive roads-and-bridges rut.
    Could we send 10% of Alabamians to experience the joys of better governance and transit elsewhere for a few weeks or months? Comparisons with other places don’t seem to produce much embarrassment or shame on the part of so-called leadership.
    I’m trying to do my part in support of the current effort to get some funding into the Transportation Trust fund this session, hoping that putting some funds in the pot will spark more pressure.

  6. Wonderful idea, glad it is working so well. A suggestion would be, do not rely totally on the App. method of getting riders, not everyone who might need a ride does not have the ability to communicate that way. I believe you would increase your business by 20 to 30 percent with other options.

  7. A smaller city like Birmingham with sprawling suburbs doesn’t need the large bus transit system. I agree the smaller “On Demand” system is the way to go. Let’s consider selling those $500K+ buses and use that money to help fund the on demand system.

    1. John,
      Here’s a short video that compares “car cities” with “transit cities.” He compares Houston, the classic car city, with Hong Kong. He shows that a transit city is even better for car drivers, though Hong Kong’s freeways only have two lanes going in each direction. That’s all they need.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4s9WDDRE2A

      We’ve spent at least about 7 decades working on being a car city. That was related to our racial history, too. It made it easier for people to move over the mountain to live in all white communities. But we still have an old bus system that is a remnant of the time when not everyone drove. Over the decades it has become less and less viable. As Mr. Nanni says, it’s not very viable to send huge half million dollar buses to areas where hardly anyone will get on them. BJCTA has identified three routes that are no longer viable for fixed-route service, including the number 12 that goes through my neighborhood and the number 43 Zoo. I spoke with two people yesterday who complained that the routes they use to get to work are being cancelled. I am hopeful that we can develop a training program so they can embrace the new on-demand transit option.

      But there’s one other legacy of our car-dependent evolution. Highway 280 is a traffic bottleneck that can’t be solved by adding more lanes for traffic. The communities it goes through, at least Homewood and Mountain Brook, don’t want more lanes. There are only two ways to reduce the congestion: either reduce the number of people trying to go or put more of them in fewer vehicles. The people and businesses who live and work out there don’t want to reduce the number who go. How do you increase the number of people going in fewer vehicles: by encouraging them to take buses! So this is a clue that fixed-route transit still has a future in the Birmingham area. In addition to this bottleneck, there are a number of other viable fixed routes that are heavily used. Sometimes they’re almost standing room only.

  8. This discussion is getting somewhere as sensible thinking continues. The problems are increasingly well described and ideas for solutions are developing in a positive direction. This certainly is a good way to make use of this Comeback Town site.

    1. Roy, Mr. Nanni spoke to our Transit Citizens Advisory Board meeting this morning. I can send you a recording of that Zoom call if you are interested. It was a very good discussion.

      1. Sorry for delay. I would like to hear that recording. Thanks for the offer. How can I receive it?

      2. Apologies for my delay. Thank you for the offer. I would very much like to receive the recording. By email shown would be fine.

  9. One issue I see with the mass transit system is that the bus stops are vey inadequate for passengers. No shade, no place to sit, no rain cover. Many stops have only a sign and that is it – no accommodations whatsoever. Examples of this are the stop in front of Whole Foods and the stop by Walgreens on Valley ave. It’s inhumane and very discouraging for individuals considering riding the bus. Just a simple bench and shade/rain protection would go a long way.

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