CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) – Dozens of Kanawha Valley residents are looking for answers about what will happen to KRT’s bus routes across the region as talk of cutting 11 routes has surfaced over the last several months. Hundreds of people rely on the routes daily for commuting.

However, KRT reported during the public meeting on Thursday evening that they are in a $1.3 million deficit due to “underperforming routes.”

KRT Executive Director Sean Hill said during the meeting that in total, KRT spends $17,072,675 annually on a combination of labor, fringe benefits, services, materials and supplies, utilities, casualty and liabilities, and miscellaneous expenses.

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He said their revenue sources in total is $15,775,882, coming from a combined state funding, advertising and charter, investments, state opioid response, passenger fares and federal via FTA. Though, Hill said the largest contributor is the Kanawha County Safety Levy. Hill said about 2% of their revenue comes from state funding.

The total deficit was $1,316,793. Hill said that given these numbers, KRT is operating by, essentially, “paying our bills with our savings account.”

During the meeting, Hill said annual ridership, according to 2022 data, is at 963,973. That is down from pre-pandemic levels.

KRT board members have suggested a possible alternative to the route cuts: the KRT Plus app, which would allow commuters to schedule a pick-up time, and a KRT van will travel to people’s original locations and transport them to their destination.

However, some commuters don’t believe this is feasible.

“The proposals work in an area where you’d be able to say have all your districts and your living area in a condensed area, like New York for example where everything is just one gigantic grid. This is a mountainside area. One, putting vehicles like that in mountainous areas where there’s inclement weather on an average day is not a smart idea,” commuter James Anderson said.

Anderson has used KRT transportation for 18 years, and he relies on it daily to get to and from work.

“They’re also talking about reducing overall hours which hurts people like me because my schedule is kind of erratic. Working midnight to 7 a.m. and then switching to a dayshift on the weekend, which is the biggest issue I have because they’re planning on reducing the Sunday services either entirely or down to a critically small amount,” Anderson said.

He continued, “The proposal obviously is going to save the money, and that’s what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to keep themselves from going into the hole. I respect that. Businesses do have the right to operate, but if it hurts their client side more than it’s going to save then, then is it worth it? That’s my big issue.”

When asked what would Anderson change about the current proposed alternatives, he suggested refining the bus routing system altogether and combining routes.

“One of the easy solutions would be to take some of the schedules that they have where they have buses that ride half the route and have buses that run the full route. For example, the Montgomery bus. It has one that only goes to the Quincy Mall and then back to the Transit Mall every 30 minutes, and then it skips once in a while. Then they have one that goes out all the way to Montgomery every two hours. If they were to uniform that and just make it a single run that went every hour out to Montgomery and back, that would cut out the middleman of the bus system,” he said.

He continued, “They could just cut out some of those and reduce that, which would also give them availability for increasing the frequency of some of the lesser used areas. I understand they’re lesser used, but if they saw the busses more, people might be more inclined to use them. It’s like seeing more of something in their area proposes the idea that they should use it more.”

July 25 is the next KRT Board meeting. This August is when the pilot program for KRT Plus will begin, however, there will be no changes to fixed route service during the pilot program period.

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