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SMART transit official and a regional rep report ridership totals; new local bus service to launch this spring
Summary
SMART senior scheduler Sean Saisbury briefed Wixom council on route ridership—route 740 carries about 900'to 1,000 riders a day across its full route, while Wixom stops see only a few dozen daily riders—and a SMART representative later said a tailored seven-day-a-week local service for Wixom is planned for mid-April to mid-June.
A SMART representative gave the Wixom City Council ridership context for routes that would connect to the city and a separate SMART commenter said a tailored local service is planned for rollout this spring.
Sean Saisbury, SMART's senior scheduler, told council members that SMART's service area covers about 2,000 square miles across suburban Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and that ridership is spread over long routes. He said route 740 (12 Mile) serves passengers across its full run at roughly "900 to 1,000 passengers a day," but added that "within Wixom itself, the route gets a couple dozen passengers a day." For route 305 (Grand River), he said the route carries about 400 to 500 riders daily across the full route and around one-quarter of that volume through Wixom and southern Novi.
During the second public comment period, a SMART representative identified in the record as Shawn Stay School described a new seven-day-per-week local service tailored particularly for Wixom, Walled Lake and Commerce Township, with local stops from the Meijer in southern Wixom through downtown Wixom and on to Walled Lake and Commerce Township. He said the service will include ADA-paired service for riders with disabilities and seniors, and that SMART hopes to launch between mid-April and mid-June, earlier if possible.
Councilmembers and staff asked follow-up questions about whether riders originate in Wixom or travel into the city; Saisbury said boarding patterns are mixed and SMART does not perform "passport checks" to determine directionality, so figures reflect a mix of boarding and alighting across stops. The council and SMART staff also discussed sharing local ridership data; staff said the city had requested numbers and that Saisbury could review those figures for council members.
The new local SMART service, if launched as described, would provide consistent seven-day service along Wixom Road and Pontiac Trail with the stated aim of serving industrial, residential and multi-family areas and giving seniors and residents with disabilities door-to-door ADA paired service.
