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Township weighs trolley extension, charter trolleys and microtransit as it considers expanded transit
Summary
Staff presented three transit options — Grogan's Mill trolley extension, charter trolley service and microtransit — with trade-offs on ridership, paratransit obligations and grant compliance; board asked staff to return with more data at the August workshops.
Ruth Ann presented three transit options to the board on July 23 and emphasized trade-offs between connectivity, ridership and federal grant conditions.
She said The Woodlands spends about $7 million annually on transit programs and that township net costs after grants are roughly $1.3 million. "We do not charge for the trolleys. They're free," she noted, and said The Woodlands Express sees about 300,000 riders and the town‑center trolley about 200,000 riders annually.
Ruth Ann described the Grogan's Mill Village Center trolley extension as potentially improving access to a new community-center location and nearby hotels but warned that the added route would cover longer distances with fewer boarding opportunities and therefore likely lower ridership per mile. Staff outlined three service-frequency scenarios (one, two or four trolleys) and highlighted that using federal formula or congestion‑mitigation grant funds would impose paratransit obligations that could expand the eligible service population (staff estimated an increase from about 9,000 to 16,000 residents in the expanded paratransit area).
On charter trolleys, staff said an expression of interest produced no competing private operators; that opens the option to use federal funds to run a charter business model or to run a locally funded program using older trolleys. Staff estimated an annual operating cost in a modest charter scenario of about $138,000 and cautioned board members that the staff estimate of 14–15 charters per month may be optimistic.
Microtransit was presented as an on‑demand, geofenced service that uses smaller vehicles and dynamic routing. Staff proposed a turnkey contract model and estimated first‑year operating ranges from roughly $660,000 to $1.3 million depending on vehicle count, with a suggested marketing budget near $40,000 to build awareness. Board members asked for examples and comparisons (Sugar Land/Fort Bend were discussed) and flagged operational questions such as supervision, customer service and fare collection models.
Staff did not recommend immediate action; directors asked for more detailed ridership modeling, paratransit-cost estimates and grant‑usage implications for an August follow-up presentation.
