BEAUMONT, Texas — One Beaumont City Council member says it may be a good time for the city to change the way it handles public transportation, but it will all start with getting a good idea of just how many people are using city buses.
After spending the day visiting different bus stops around the city, there weren't too many people around. Councilman Mike Getz says this might be a sign something needs to change.
Getz said the City of Beaumont spends about $2.5 million in taxpayer dollars to run the bus services.
"Two and a half million dollars with a budget our size, it's substantial. That's street projects, that's additional police officers, firefighters we could hire," Getz said.
When it comes to the Beaumont Transit System, Getz says it's time for an upgrade.
"It's a system that hasn't been changed in 60 years, it's the same thing we've been doing forever. Just because we've always done it a certain way doesn't mean that it needs to be continued that way," Getz said.
Getz says there just aren't enough people riding the bus.
"We've been told anecdotally that it's going down every year, and that since the coronavirus hit, even though the fares are free, that it's down seventy percent from that," Getz said.
In 2010 Councilman Getz said there were only about a thousand people in the city that actually rode the bus. Fast forward ten years later and add in a global pandemic, and he says he wouldn't be surprised if that number dropped to about 400 people.
"Now if I'm wrong about that then I want to know but it makes an important determination on how we're going to afford this, we need to know how many people use the bus," Getz said.
That's why he believes it's time for updated numbers. He says the latest data they have is from a 2010 census.
Some cities use ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft as a public transportation system. Getz believes it's a model that could work in Beaumont.
"People with wheelchairs we're gonna have to consider how to deal with that. I don't know if we would have some sort of a hybrid system or not. The whole point is to try to be a little more efficient while providing better transportation options for those that need it," Getz said.
He says there's no timelines on when a new model will come in place just yet, but the first step is getting a fresh set of data.