Marion considering ‘micro-transit’ instead of Cedar Rapids buses

MARION — Faced with a rising bill for being included in the Cedar Rapids Transit bus system, the city of Marion is looking at moving instead to a “micro-transit” service.

Marion now has a transit agreement with Cedar Rapids to provide service in town, but also has a neighborhood transport service with Horizons for after-hours rides.

At last week’s Marion City Council meeting, officials directed city staff to formalize a timeline and prepare documents to move forward with the fully micro-transit option, which would be in partnership with Horizons. The city is waiting for resident survey results to fully commit to the plan.

“It’s essentially an Uber for public transit,” Community Development Director Tom Treharne said. “It would be a great asset to the community. … This service would be a tremendous increase in service in our community.”

The decision comes after Cedar Rapids told Marion it would be increasing the cost of its agreement by over $100,000 to about $535,000 annually. With the after-hours service added, the total cost is $567,205 for Marion.

If Marion makes the switch to go fully micro-transit, the annual cost would be $525,352, which includes the after-hour service.

“We’ve been working with Cedar Rapids on it,” Treharne said. “Cedar Rapids has even said they understand it will be difficult for us to provide (the current service). I don’t think it’s a competition thing. They’re saying, ‘Hey, this is an opportunity that I think will work for you.’”

The city also had launched a survey for current and potential public transportation users to “determine the viability of a new, on-demand ride-sharing service.” The survey, which remains open through the end of the month at polco.us/s4pgcn and in hard copy form at Marion City Hall, is designed to evaluate the reasons residents use public transportation and whether the on-demand service would be beneficial in town.

“Marion is experiencing growing pains with traditional fixed-route transit,” Associate Planner Kesha Billings said.

If the city fully agrees to the ride-share option, it would be looking to its American Rescue Plan Act dollars to purchase the smaller, 16-passenger buses to launch the service. The city would use about $225,000 of its $6 million of its ARPA funds to buy three buses, Treharne said. The after-hours service would still continue as well for its annual $31,688 cost.

Mayor Nick AbouAssaly said the new plan sounded great, as long as the cost to riders wasn’t a significant increase.

“That would be taking away the point of public transportation,” AbouAssaly said.

The price for a ride with the proposed ride-share option would be $3 a ride. Currently, due to the pandemic, Cedar Rapids Transit is temporarily free to ride. The council could also decide to have free or reduced rates, based on variables that could include income.

In addition, riders who take a Cedar Rapids bus and then transfer to the Marion ride-share or vice versa would be charged for only one in an agreement proposed between the two cities. The connection for Cedar Rapids and Marion on Twixt Town Road would remain as well.

Before the pandemic, the neighborhood transport service was seeing 40,000 riders. But with the pandemic’s arrival in 2020, that was cut to 20,000. Now, the rides are up 117 percent again. The service is largely app based, but riders can schedule rides over the phone and website, too.

“It sounds like it would be a better service for our community,” council member Steve Jensen said. “It sounds more flexible and that it would be used more.”

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