The Asheville Rides Transit bus system is gearing up for major changes over the year to come. A new contract with RATP Dev, the city’s current bus operator, goes into effect in July; the city’s “Comprehensive Operational Analysis,” a plan to reshape the system’s routes with a focus on improving frequency, is scheduled for completion by August.
Yet as the system evolves, local transit advocates have raised concerns about how Asheville is proceeding. They’ve also been frustrated with what they describe as a lack of transparency in the city’s processes for making decisions.
Asheville City Council narrowly approved the new transit contract, worth nearly $55 million over four years, in a 4-3 vote March 24. The result wasn’t what Steve Sprague expected when the city put out bids for the contract last year. Sprague is president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 128 chapter that represents Asheville bus drivers and mechanics.
“As a group, we had anticipated that there was no way this company was going to stay,” Sprague recalled. “There were just too many things that were done wrong over the past seven years.”
From a rider experience standpoint, RATP Dev’s buses have consistently run late, with on-time performance estimated at just 62% as of October. (The current on-time performance target is 72%, and the new contract raises that goal to 80%.) In some cases, the company reduced or cancelled routes due to a lack of drivers.
Of particular concern from labor’s perspective, said Sprague, the contractor has allegedly failed to provide new hires with adequate training, then fired them for missteps that could have been avoided with proper preparation. Multiple local employees have filed complaints against RATP Dev with the federal National Labor Relations Board or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
One former employee, Briana Jones, brought those concerns to Council during public comment March 24, saying RATP had “the most egregious management that I think I’ve ever experienced in my entire life as a young professional.” She said that she raised the issue with Ashley Haire, the city’s transportation director, only to be told “it is out of our hands.” A March 26 public records request for email correspondence between Jones and Haire was unfulfilled as of press time.
In response to BPR’s request for comment, company spokesperson Aleksandra Poplawska wrote: “The system is now fully staffed, and our team remains focused on reliability, cleanliness, and the overall rider experience. RATP Dev also takes all personnel matters seriously and follows all applicable federal and state laws concerning the treatment of employees.”
Despite the company’s alleged issues, Asheville’ assistant transportation director Jessica Morriss told Council that RATP Dev was the only firm of the four bidders to fulfill the city’s technical requirements for a transit operator. That determination was made by a seven-member committee composed mostly of city staff. Unlike during the evaluation of bids in 2017, Sprague said, no current or former union member was allowed to participate in the process and share their experiences with the bus system.
Moreover, the city did not publicly name the other bidders for the transit contract, a decision outside local government’s normal practice for the procurement of all kinds of services, from asphalt repaving to sewer line installation. BPR made a public records request for all four transit bids March 17; as of press time, the city had released only one document, a bid from San Francisco-based WeDriveU. Asheville public records officer Allison Byers said she could not provide the other documents until she had “heard back from the companies regarding redaction of trade secret information.”
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Vice Mayor Antanette Mosley, who voted against the contract March 24, said she wasn’t confident it would force RATP Dev to address its challenges. “We continue to hear from riders about missed routes, delays, and reliability issues, and I heard those concerns firsthand as recently as this week,” she wrote in a comment to BPR on April 1. “Before committing to a multi-year contract, I believe we should have stronger performance standards, clearer accountability measures, and a structure that prioritizes consistent, high-quality service.”
Council member Sage Turner, who also voted against the contract, said at the March 24 meeting that she was primarily concerned about the increasing cost of transit. The next fiscal year’s contract with RATP Dev runs to nearly $12.7 million, an $800,000 increase over the current year. Council’s third nay vote on the contract, Sheneika Smith, did not address her position at the Council meeting nor respond to a BPR request for comment.
Where are you going?
Separate from the RATP Dev contract negotiations, Asheville transit staff are overseeing a $300,000 study of bus routes. Jarrett Walker & Associates, a Portland, Oregon-based consultancy, is conducting a “Comprehensive Operational Analysis,” which asks whether the city’s bus system should prioritize wider-reaching or more frequent service. Public input on the matter was broadly divided, and Council subsequently asked the consultant to suggest tweaks that would improve bus frequency.
The consultant’s survey, however, presented residents with a “ridership” map, focused on frequency, that did not include many of the city’s existing bus routes. Although the concept was explicitly labeled as “not a proposal,” it has raised fears that some current routes through neighborhoods like Oakley or North Asheville might be eliminated.
Michael Stratton, an Oakley resident who often rides the S5 route from his home to downtown Asheville, noticed that his regular bus was absent from the consultant’s ridership map. Even though he knew those routes were hypothetical, he said he found their implications concerning. And, he said, because Asheville’s citizen advisory boards — including the Transit Committee and Multimodal Transportation Commission — have largely been on hold since Hurricane Helene, there weren’t public venues for discussion of route changes.
“If we're looking at the status quo versus this, there are going to be some cuts somewhere,” Stratton said. “And the only information that was out there, as far as what's being considered, was that map that was released.”
An advisory body called the Core Design Committee has met sporadically to review and give feedback on the consultant’s work, but the city has not publicized its meetings. Vicki Meath, a committee member and executive director of the nonprofit Just Economics, said the group hasn’t convened since November and has yet to see concrete proposals for new routes.
“We want to make sure that we do not cut service to core communities,” said Meath, emphasizing that no decisions have been made. “We want to also just recognize people's anxiety around the potential of having their bus service cut.”
In a March 17 presentation, Morriss, with Asheville’s transportation department, told Council that the city had already developed a “Draft Network Plan” for the bus system and had tested new route designs. BPR made a public records request for the plan the same day, but was told the draft plan wasn’t a public record because it existed only as data in a software program. Instead, the city provided “turn sheets” outlining step-by-step directions for six proposed routes.
Council member Kim Roney, a longtime transit advocate and bus rider, said Asheville could do better with engaging the community on transit decisions.
“We exclude people instead of include people. Then the plan comes out, and there's a robust community engagement against the plan, and then we blame it on the public as a culture of delay,” said Roney.
