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Susan Bean got off the bus a stop or two too late. The bus — the S3, down Hendersonville Road in South Asheville — completes a regular two-hour loop to the airport and back. Bean was hoping to get off at a location where she would be able to easily take another bus, the S6, back to downtown Asheville.
Unfortunately, the consequences of her error were immediate. In this part of town, buses come infrequently — sometimes with as long as 90 minutes between runs. The subsequent bus stop was by the side of Hendersonville Road, trucks whizzing past. The steep hillside was covered in grass, no sidewalks, no crosswalks.
For some people, the bus is their only transportation option. Susan Bean, though, has another mission. Bean, who is the housing and transportation director at MountainTrue, made the choice to ride the bus to raise awareness for the city’s transit survey. This survey, which is available until Oct. 26, is part of a larger planning process called the Comprehensive Operational Analysis. It comes at a critical time for the bus system’s future. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, ART ridership — in line with national trends — has decreased even as the city continues to grow. Yet, 74% of sampled Asheville residents wanted expanded bus service, according to previous steps in the engagement process.
As she walked to catch the S6, Bean bemoaned the land use patterns that have led us to this point.
“The more that we could make our transit system efficient and plan our land use development, change our patterns of development to be in places that are transit accessible and then increase the frequency of transit along those routes, the more people would be able to get out of their personal vehicles, reduce greenhouse gas emissions city-wide, and it would be so much better for the climate,” Bean said.
Long term, the city is thinking about two diverging paths for the future of Asheville transit. One model involves fewer bus routes with more frequent service. The other proposes more bus routes with less frequent service. Survey-takers need to choose between options outlined in the project’s previous phase, the concept report.
With the “ridership model”, riders would see lower wait times and increased service to dense parts of the city. But long routes — like the WE10, which runs far west to New Leicester Highway — could be curtailed. In the “coverage model,” these further-flung routes would continue to be served in order to ensure coverage reaches as many people as it needs to, but wait times would be longer.
That's a trade-off that Asheville's transit division manager, Chris Whitlock, is weighing.
The survey is part of a larger effort that’s the first close look at Asheville’s transit since 2018. Whitlock and the transit division have been leading the $300,000 public engagement process, which kicked off in April. The goal is to improve the system within essentially the same budget.
“Both concepts are built using the same resources we have today. That means we have to make choices about how we use them,” Whitlock said. “If we focus on making buses come more often in busy areas, we have to reduce service in other parts of the city. On the other hand, if we spread service out so more neighborhoods have access, buses can’t come as frequently.”
Ridership has slid from nearly 2 million in 2019 to 1.58 million in 2024. Meanwhile, the city continues to develop outwards from the city center rather than prioritizing density, which Bean worries only adds more expensive territory for transit to cover. According to Bean, buses are cheaper to operate in grid patterns, rather than along highways in valleys and along rivers.
“We can’t change land use patterns overnight,” Bean said. “We could condense our land use development, do it more efficiently, put it in places that are transit supported. The sort of ripple-effect benefits to the climate really are myriad.”
Money is limited. Fares only pay for about 15% percent of the city’s $15 million transit budget. Much of the rest is subsidized by state and federal funding. And there have been critical shortages of late, especially after Helene stressed the system.
“One of our biggest challenges since then has been a shortage of bus operators, which has sometimes meant suspending service on certain routes each day,” Whitlock said. “That’s why it’s so important that we match our service to the resources we have, so we can provide reliable transit the community can count on.”
The thing is, Bean said, buses don’t really pay for themselves but they’re still important for the public good, and that’s why taxpayers subsidize them, like schools or hospitals.
“It is a cost intensive service, but it is a critical public service that our community needs to provide and be able to access,” Bean said.
Back on Hendersonville Road, Bean had almost reached the other bus stop back to catch the S6 back into town.
At last, a stoplight allowed her to cross the street safely. The bus stop itself was on an empty lot – precipitating another ten to fifteen minute wait on the scrubby grass, with no shelter, and nowhere to sit.
At the stop, another rider, Philip Anderson, joined Bean to wait for the bus. This is his usual routine. He works in Arden but lives closer to downtown.
“I have to wait almost an hour or something when I get off work,” Anderson said. The bus eventually pulled up with a groan, and everyone got on.
After boarding and settling in, Anderson said that he loves ART despite some of the hassle. He doesn’t want a car. His wife has one, but she needs it for work, and he finds the bus ride relaxing.
“Air conditioned bus, drivers are friendly, most people I meet on the bus are friendly,” Anderson said. “It’s fine. It has kinks but I’m sure they’re gonna figure it out.”
To Bean, this moment for a potential rearrangement of Asheville’s bus system is all about helping people like Anderson get around more easily — and helping new people find joy in riding the bus, too.
