Beaumont transit study finds most stops inaccessible; project team seeks public input on priorities

Ron, a project presenter for the "Beaumont on the Move" study, told attendees the effort is a 10-year plan to improve how people get around the city of Beaumont and to build recommendations for a more reliable, better-connected transit network.

"We have a very simple goal and that is for Beaumont Transit to be more reliable, better connected, and future ready so our community can get to where it needs to go," Ron said as he outlined four study phases: collecting input now, drafting recommendations, public review in late summer/early fall and presentation to the city council for adoption in fall/winter 2026.

The presentation summarized Beaumont Transit service and travel patterns. Ron said the system currently runs two local routes (3 and 4), several weekday peak routes serving middle- and high-school students, a hybrid "Casino Express" serving warehouses and the Morango casino, and commuter-link service (route 120) to San Bernardino. Service largely runs about once an hour and typically ends around 6 p.m.; Saturday service is limited to two routes and much lower ridership.

Survey and engagement findings were central to the presentation. Ron reported that rider surveys show 58% of riders are students, 56% are under age 18, 59% said they would not be able to make their trips without Beaumont Transit, and 49% of riders reported household incomes under $35,000. Separate mailed household surveys to over 400 addresses found non‑riders often prefer to drive or cited long travel times, low frequency, too many transfers and inconvenient hours as barriers; many non-riders said easier onboard payment by credit card or phone would make them more likely to ride.

Ron highlighted a pronounced student peak: October boardings are about three times higher than July, and weekday spikes around 7–8 a.m. and about 3 p.m. reflect travel to and from school. He said those travel patterns influence where service and stop improvements could have the most impact.

A central finding Ron emphasized was the condition of stops: Beaumont staff counted 129 stops systemwide, with 26 benches and 23 shelters, but "about 96" stops are technically inaccessible for wheelchair boarding because boarding areas are too small or lack adequate paved space. He said 16 stops have no sidewalk or paved boarding area, 17 stops lack a clear sidewalk-to-street connection (landscape strips or similar), and one boarding area was too steep for safe boarding. Ron explained the practical constraint: a usable boarding area generally needs roughly 8 feet of depth for a ramp to deploy safely.

"A lot of these buses are just on sidewalks where there's already landscape strips or the sidewalk's not wide enough for the customer to be able to get up and off the ramp," Ron said, describing why many stops fail accessibility standards and why some locations will be harder or costlier to fix.

To guide decisions, the team asked attendees to rank six prioritization factors for stop improvements: ridership (boarding counts), safety (lighting and pedestrian access), comfort (shade and weather protection), accessibility (room for ramps and paved boarding areas), fairness (equitable distribution across neighborhoods), and destinations (major trip generators such as senior centers or medical facilities). Ron said the project will phase improvements and cannot address all locations at once; trade-offs will consider adjacent land use constraints and the need to retain service in some locations.

The presenters summarized public engagement to date — rider and household surveys, plus four or five pop-up events and interactive exercises — and invited continued input via the project website "Beaumont on the Move," email and phone. Draft recommendations will be released for public comment later this year, with final recommendations expected to be presented to the city council in fall/winter 2026.

Next steps: the project team will analyze the input and service evaluation to develop draft recommendations for public review; attendees were encouraged to return to meetings later in the year and submit offline comments through the project contact options shown on the project website.