Free shuttle service for downtown attractions proposed

Greater Dayton RTA is moving forward with establishing a free shuttle service that connects popular destinations in Dayton’s urban core.

The public transit agency is in the initial planning stages of developing the service, but the shuttles could debut sometime next year, said Mark Donaghy, the CEO of the Greater Dayton RTA.

The free shuttles — called circulators — would connect riders to major shopping, recreational, hospitality, employment and arts and cultural hot spots and districts, officials said.

Dayton would join Cleveland, Columbus and an array of other major U.S. cities to offer no-cost busing to bolster tourism and improve connectivity between community amenities.

“I absolutely believe this will happen, but the question now is in what form,” Donaghy said.

An updated version of the Greater Downtown Dayton Plan unveiled in November 2014 recommended offering free circulator buses or trolleys in the center city.

In a recent interview, Donaghy told this newspaper the hope is to launch the program sometime during the warm months of next year.

Most details of the program have yet to be worked out, including the source of funding and the types of vehicles to use.

The program could be partly funded by sponsorships, and the RTA could possibly use buses that are already in its fleet.

Some U.S. cities have purchased special trolley buses or streetcars for their circulator programs.

The circulator’s stops and path of travel have not been decided, and they could vary, depending on the time of day and day of the week.

Potential daytime and weekday destinations include Sinclair Community College, Wright Stop Plaza, the Oregon Historic District, the Dayton Convention Center and the heart of the Central Business District.

Nighttime and weekend stops could include the Schuster Center, the Oregon district, RiverScape MetroPark, Fifth Third Field and some downtown housing locations.

Growth in the urban core makes this an ideal time to provide the additional servicebecause more people are living, working, dining, shopping and recreating in the greater downtown area, said Donaghy.

The circulator would operate in a compact area and would give the public a fast, convenient and no-cost method of traveling between areas that could be cumbersome to get to on foot, he said.

Some recommended guidelines for the transit system include keeping the daytime route under 4.5 miles and the nighttime and weekend route under 5.5 miles.

Circulators are designed for very short trips, such as whisking workers in the Central Business District to the Oregon district for lunch, officials said. It’s about a mile from the Schuster Center to the eastern end of the Oregon business district.

Successful circulators are easy to use and make frequent and dependable pick-ups, typically about every 10 to 15 minutes, officials said.

Circulators must run on a very reliable schedule to ensure people can get to where they are going on time, such as a lunch meeting or an event, said Sandy Gudorf, president of the Downtown Dayton Partnership.

“We don’t want people waiting 20 minutes or half an hour, because they are not going to do that,” she said.

Adding a circulator service will link the housing, amenities and employment centers downtown, and it will complement the Link bike-sharing program, which has helped make the urban core more pedestrian friendly, Gudorf said.

Downtown has impressive attractions, institutions and offerings, but it would benefit from stronger connectivity, she said.

“As downtowns become live, work and play spaces, there (must be) modes of transportation that accommodate all of that,” she said. “We’re seeing a lot of investment and we’re seeing more density.”

The RTA plans to model the new circulator service on successful programs in other cities, such as Cleveland and Columbus.

Columbus launched a free bus service in May 2014 called CBUS to serve 29 stops. The buses run every 10 to 15 minutes seven days a week, traveling between the brewery district, the arena district, Short North and the Victorian and Italian villages. Riders on average have wait times of between five to eight minutes.

The CBUS serves people who live, work and visit downtown and who do not own cars or want to use their vehicles sparringly, said Lisa Myers, spokeswoman with the Central Ohio Transit Authority, which operates the CBUS.

The buses ensure people do not have to find parking or park multiple times to visit to popular destinations, Myers said.

The frequency of the buses and the lack of fees remove the barriers that prevent people from using public transit, she said.

“It’s very easy for visitors who do not know Columbus very well to hop on,” she said.

Cleveland offers free trolleys on several routes to quickly transport employees, residents and visitors to popular locations, including PlayhouseSquare, the primary entertainment district and the Horseshoe Casino and Public Square.

The circulator concept is not completely foreign to Dayton.

The Miami Valley Regional Transit Authority in 1992 began operating a low-cost and sometimes free bus service called the Wright Flyer.

The vehicles were replicas of early 20th century streetcars that operated in and around downtown.

The service was scaled back in the early 2000s and completely discontinued not long after, and the vehicles were sold off.

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