Irvine is launching a new pilot program for shuttle services in town amidst a shrinking county bus system, raising questions on whether the city will be taking a bigger role in public transit moving forward.
The new shuttle system, dubbed Irvine Connect, launched this month with over 70 stops throughout the city, including at the Spectrum Center, Hoag hospital and the Northwood town center, along with several schools and parks.
City Manager Oliver Chi said the city plans to run the shuttles for a year and then reassess whether enough people are riding to make it viable long term in a Wednesday interview.
“Increasingly there’s an expectation that public transportation options be more efficient and more on demand in some respects,” Chi said. “We’re launching an analysis of options to think through what a modern transportation system could look like in Irvine.”
As these free trams are starting up, the Orange County Transportation Authority has pulled back on its bus routes over the last five years, cutting eight routes altogether and 250 stops according to the agency’s budget reports.
Chi also said the main reason Irvine initiated the program is because transportation authority officials wouldn’t increase bus routes in the city.
“The genesis of looking at different options more locally has really been ridership levels at OCTA have historically been really low, to the point where it’s challenging for OCTA to add additional lines,” Chi said, adding that ridership was “an impediment to OCTA making route adjustments.”
Eric Carpenter, a spokesperson for OCTA, argued the agency hadn’t reduced service, but had instead shut down areas that weren’t getting much ridership to focus on the areas where they had more people taking the bus.
“It doesn’t mean that we’re cutting service overall to the county, but we’re trying to move existing resources to where they’re being used,” Carpenter said.
But the authority’s pulling back on certain routes hasn’t helped them save money, according to their annual budgets, which aren’t running an overall deficit.
While the bus system was losing nearly $260 million five years ago, with revenues from riders covering just $47.8 million of the buses’ $307 million upkeep, the gap has only gotten worse.
According to the agency’s 2023-24 budget, the fare revenues are at just over $40 million.
But bus costs increased to over $384 million, leaving a $343 million tab the agency was forced to cover in its budget.
That’s a gap of around $83 million.
With the dropoff in bus routes there’s also been a dropoff in ridership, with 7.6 million fewer boardings this year than in 2019 according to the agency’s budget.
Carpenter said the agency’s ridership plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic but is beginning to recover, noting that as ridership rose they also have to deal with increased salaries and maintenance costs.
“We want to responsibly reintroduce service as the demand is there,” Carpenter said. “We’re trying to be responsible with that service as the demand increases.”
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