Dunn County transit reports ridership gains, proposes campus route change for summer

At the March 12 Dunn County transit meeting, transit staff reported higher ridership in February and presented a proposed route adjustment to bring more runs directly to campus. Transit staff also described planned temporary moves of bus shelters during Heritage Hall construction and new in-bus advertising and rider information.

The presentation, given by a transit staff member identified in the record as Austin, said overall fixed-route ridership dipped slightly month-to-month but rose on a per-service-day basis, and that community-route and ‘‘stealth’’ route ridership saw large increases in February. Austin said the system recorded roughly 549 riders on the red-seater route in February versus about 567 in January, a 3% month-to-month decrease but a 35% increase when measured per service day because February had fewer service days. He reported community-route ridership rose from 1,394 to 2,097 in February, and said the stealth route rose from about 3,700 in January to roughly 16,000 in February. "So it's good to see," Austin said when summarizing February numbers.

The nut graf: staff framed the numbers as a…