JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — A couple thousand people across the New Orleans metro area rely on public transportation to get to where they need to go, but complaints are growing about buses that are delayed or just don't show up and that notifications about the delays or cancellations are themselves unreliable.
"The common theme we're hearing is that buses do not show up when they're supposed to show up, that they have significant wait times for the buses," said Ride New Orleans Executive Director Courtney Jackson. "Then, when they do get on the bus, often they're crowded and quite frankly unsafe for them, and it is causing problems for folks who rely solely on transit."
According to Jackson, some people are choosing to walk long distances instead of taking the bus, while those who can afford it, pay for ride-share services. When people do wait for the bus, Jackson says the apps that are available to list wait times and delays, are not always accurate. When routes do change, riders tell Jackson there isn't an advanced notice from transit officials, so some people are waiting for buses that never come. People in both Orleans and Jefferson parishes share some of the same concerns.
"What we're hearing in Orleans Parish is a combination of all three. There's coverage issues, there's frequency and reliability issues, and then there's long wait time issues. Whereas in Jefferson Parish, we're not hearing so much about the frequency and the reliability, more so on the lack of coverage and access to things and one of those being the access they had to a major job center prior to June 4," said Jackson.
Jefferson Parish did make some cuts and changes to 6 of its 13 routes a few months ago, with one major change to the E1, discontinuing the service from City Park to downtown New Orleans. In a previous interview, Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said cutting these routes was suggested by the parish transit based on data.
In a statement to WWL, Jefferson Parish Transit Director Ninette Barrios said, "Jefferson Parish Transit remains committed to serving our residents through safe, affordable, and reliable transportation. Our average on-time performance for September 2023 is 90 percent for buses and 96 percent for Paratransit. For more information about JP Transit schedules and routes or to download the live bus tracker app, visit JPtransit.org."
"We are looking at all the different resources because we recognize that when a bus is late, and our rider needs to get to work or to school, that impact we don't take this lightly, but our team is working very hard to solve this problem," said Regional Transit Authority of New Orleans CEO Lona Hankins.
Hankins said the RTA has an aging fleet. Hankins said of the 140 buses, between 40-60 vehicles are at the end of their useful life, with mechanical issues happening daily. Not to mention, one of the original bus manufacturers is out of business, and diesel mechanics are hard to come by. With the cards stacked against them, Hankins says this is something they are actively working to solve.
"We have an order right now for 21 buses. And we're set to hit the manufacturing queue in March. Our board just approved the US to order another eight vehicles," she said. "The other thing we're doing is we're focusing really heavily on retraining our current mechanics that we have on how to be better diagnosticians. We've gotten our board to approve traveling mechanics like traveling nurses, so we have on any given day can have mechanics from New York or from West Virginia, to come in and help us with this shortage."
Jackson said she recognizes the challenges the RTA and JP transit are facing are not unique to the area, but says she believes they could be more communication when it comes to delays and route changes.
"What we need right now is a system that works, that is accurate for transit riders to navigate again, those eight buses are not going to show up tomorrow. So, what can we do now to make sure that riders can navigate the system that they have," said Jackson.
Hankins said, "As a result of the last board meeting, we've tried to change how we communicate to riders because we've heard riders' complaints. So, we were able to tell riders why there is a delay, but what we can't predict is how long the delay will (last). We want to make sure we can reliably communicate, and we invite Ride or anybody else that has a solution to come share it with us."
Ride New Orleans is planning on hosting its State of Transit report and breakfast briefing on Tuesday, November 14th from 7:30 am to 9:30 am. City leaders and transit advocates will be in attendance.
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