Lextran will present the microtransit feasibility study this week

The study recommends the between Versailles Road and Newtown Pike for a mictransit pilot project. This area has several employment hubs without regular bus service, has several medical facilities with high demand, and also is an area with a lot of Wheels usage.

Nelson Nygaard also recommends an outline for how the pilot would operate.

• The service would be open seven days a week between 6am and 8pm. Two vehicles minimum would operate within the zone.

• Trips would cost $3 per trip. If a rider wanted to ride one of the bus routes after the microtransit trip, they would be given a free transfer card that would allow them to board the bus without paying the bus fare.

• The service would be based on an “anywhere to anywhere” model — riders could start and end a trip at any point within the zone. However, a rider could not be picked up or dropped off anywhere outside this zone; they would have to use the bus system to get outside the zone.

Nelson Nygaard also recommends a two year pilot which they estimate would total $2.3 million. The fare box recovery ratio — the percentage of the system’s operating cost that would be covered by the fare passengers pay for each ride — would be roughly 5%, so Lextran would need to find other funding sources to pay for the other 95% of the operating costs. While a rider would only pay $3 for a trip, each trip would cost Lextran $59.75 to operate. Each trip on a Lextran bus costs $5 per passnger

The pilot would likely not lead to many trips. Based on case studies of other microtransit services being operated across the county, the study estimates a service in Lexington would have 1.9 passengers per hour and have roughly 377 trips per week. For comparison, Lextran’s bus routes average 12,444 trips each weekday and 22 passengers per hour.

Council allocated $250k in the FY26 Budget to partially fund a microtransit pilot. Lextran would have to find extra funding, perhaps from a grant or from a private organization, to support even a one year microtransit pilot.

You can review the presentation slides starting on page 11 of this packet.

Council Work Session will be held on Tuesday, June 3rd at 3pm in Council Chambers. You can attend in-person or watch live on LexTV.

Republished from CivicLex.

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