MINOT, ND ( KXNET ) — After three years of waiting, Minot residents now have two new bus routes to explore.

Last year, the Minot City Transit buses saw eighty thousand riders and transit leaders say they are expecting an increase in ridership, by eight to ten percent. When the new Trinity opened in the southwest corner of Minot, none of the current routes ran that far.

The City of Minot’s Transit Superintendent, Brian Horinka, knew they’d have to do something different to keep things moving.

“We put that one together,” he explained. “We took that opportunity to also put another route on that serves an area that needed service up in the north end of town — north of the airport and over to the Ramstad school area.”

Last year they tried launching the new routes but didn’t have enough drivers. This year that all changed when they were able to hire a few. The first new route will be called the Southwest Route.

“Head south on Sixth Street from the auditorium, go down to 20th Avenue by Marketplace, and it is going to head back to the west over to 16th,” Horinka stated. “That gets by all those businesses there, and CVS, and that area where we haven’t been. Then, we are going to go south on 16th, then over to the new hospital. On our way back, we are going to take 16th all the way to Burdick Expressway, and back to the auditorium.”

The second new route is the North Route.

“It pretty much runs all the way up Broadway,” added Horinka, “up by job service. It will do a little loop in that housing area north of the airport. It will cross Broadway go by Ramstad, and then back down Broadway to the auditorium.”

They’ve streamlined things as well, renaming routes so they won’t have two different ones running on the same road. They’ve also added another bus during the day to help keep things running smoothly.

“That allowed us to expand our services to a little further to the east,” Horinka added, “down Valley and Hiawatha Street where we weren’t at before. Other than that, all the other five routes stay exactly the same. Same timing — we are just adding service to what we are currently doing.”

Over the next couple of years, those with the Minot Transit System are planning on doing a study. It is to determine what the community’s needs will be five and even 10 years later on down the road.

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