With federal funding for the Enterprise South bus service coming to an end next year, the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority is looking to community members, elected officials and riders to determine if the line has a future.
The route, which takes passengers from downtown, East Ridge and the Northgate Mall area to Enterprise South industrial park, is currently funded by a $1.7 million Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant that has allowed CARTA to test new services, as well as $433,000 provided by the Chattanooga City Council. The three-year grant was acquired in August 2015 and will expire in August 2018.
The line runs in the mornings and evenings Monday through Friday to accommodate various shift changes at most of the companies in the industrial park, including Volkswagen and Amazon, two of the largest employers in the area with more than 2,000 full-time employees each, according to the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce. A Saturday service was also added to the downtown route.
Though CARTA Director Lisa Maragnano said she’d hoped for higher ridership, the route’s passenger count has been steadily increasing each month. In March 2016, for example, 440 people rode the shuttle. By March 2017, that number had increased to 1,900, with an average of 82 passengers a day.
Many of those riders have been Enterprise South employees with no access to transportation of their own or those who were looking to avoid parking issues in the industrial district, Maragnano said, and reports have indicated that the service would only become more valuable to these employees with time.