OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Rochester Transit Committee Meeting - March 19, 2026: Service Changes and Transit Report

Boards and CommissionsThursday, March 19, 2026
BodyRochester, Minnesota
SessionBoards and Commissions
DateThursday, March 19, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:13:39

Transcript — Verbatim
0:22

Since Jesse is not here, I'll just go through.

0:36

So we have two main items on here.

0:39

It would be the January transit reports.

0:44

This is really just for information purposes.

0:46

So every month we will release a report that is late for two months.

0:51

So we are in March, you are not getting the January report.

0:54

In April, you'll be getting the free bill report just to give you a state of transit, what our ridership numbers are on time and what our financials are looking like.

1:05

So I attached a copy of the report to the agenda.

1:16

Um we have fixed route data, we have zips, which is our power transit service, and then we have our financials for both fixed route and for zips.

1:27

So with fixed routes, you would see that uh, and again the green bar is for 2025 last year, and then this other color is for 2026.

1:41

So we are sort of comparing what's happening this year to what happened last year, and you would see uh January ridership is a bit higher than what we had in 2025, which actually showing some growth.

1:54

We have what our completed trips here, which is basically how many trips we scheduled were we able to complete.

2:01

So in January, we had a completion rate of 99.96.

2:07

So we've missed, I think about six trips the whole of January.

2:11

And our target for completed trips is actually 100.

2:14

So we are hoping that every month we are able to complete every trip we've scheduled, but this is not at the target yet, but still pretty close.

2:23

Okay, you would see the green line for 2025.

2:30

You could tell what some of those percentages are.

2:33

So there's actually a good improvement.

2:36

To measure how effective we are, we usually consider ridership per vehicle revenue hour.

2:43

Our target for that is 15 riders per hour.

2:47

Currently, for January 2026, we were at 6.4 riders per hour.

2:54

Even with that, if you compare to what we had in January 2025, that was 5.73 all through till September of last year, that is when we were able to reach 6.7.

3:07

But it seems we have started a bit strong this year with the 6.4 instead of the 5.7 we had in January.

3:16

For ZIPS, which is our paratransit service, ridership was a bit lower than what we had as compared to last year.

3:26

On time is also slightly low, ridership per hour is also slightly low, but uh new contractor or our subcontractor, transverse subcontractor.

3:37

So translate subcontract service power transfer services to my city.

3:42

So transdev only does or focuses on fixed routes and then my CD does power transit.

3:49

They've been working really hard to get these numbers up.

3:52

So hopefully for the rest of the months or the rest of the months and the year, we should see these numbers going up.

3:59

For our financials, these numbers are not very much up to date.

4:05

Some of the things we spent on are yet to hit our accounts.

4:08

This is just January.

4:10

So as we update these ridership or monthly reports through February, March, we are hopefully we are hoping to see these numbers show what the true state of transit is.

4:22

So I'll just quickly glance through this, but they are not as accurate as you want them to be because some of our financials are still getting our accounts.

4:32

So as I as I said, we would provide you with these reports every month, and you could review them and come with any questions you have on them.

4:43

Okay.

5:00

So we usually have service changes twice every year, mostly in the spring and the fall.

5:03

And these service changes just allow us to look at our system, see what's working, what's not, and just realign service to where demand is.

5:28

Okay.

5:28

So I'll give an update for what happened during the fall before I go into what we'll be doing this spring.

5:35

So in the fall, we discontinued four routes, which is 103, 202, 217, and 309.

5:43

We made some route frequency changes to our week weekend and evening service.

5:49

So in the evenings, we have service every 30 minutes from 7 p.m.

5:53

to 10 p.m.

5:55

We change that to every hour because ridership was just not meeting up with that demand, and we just had to cut back on service a bit.

6:03

Also, we realigned four routes, we had to shorten one route.

6:08

And what that looked like after the changes were that we were currently at 30 routes, we moved to 26 routes.

6:16

We cut back on our revenue miles and revenue hours.

6:19

So what guided these changes we made in the fall was that our operating expense.

6:26

So the state and federal gives us some money to operate our services.

6:31

The state and federal used to give us 95%, and we would just cover 5% from our fares and any advertisements we had.

6:40

But from 2026, the state was only going to cover 85%, and we had to cover 15%.

6:48

So that means that there was more, I mean, more on us to cover because five was not moving to 15%.

6:56

And our ridership was just not at the point where we couldn't make enough revenue to cover our services.

7:01

That was why we needed to reduce or cut back on service or realign service to work demand was.

7:07

So that was part of the guided principle against those changes we made.

7:12

We made the changes in November 2026, November 2025, 26th November.

7:19

And after monitoring and looking at data and performance over a few months, we noticed that even with these changes we made, we were able to increase our burdens per hour from seven to eight.

7:32

As I said, our goal for burdens per hour is 15, but at least from the changes we made in the fall, we noticed that our burdens per R increased by one from seven to eight, which is an improvement.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Public Transportation█████████████████████████████████████████████66%
Procedural████████████18%
Community Engagement██████9%
Fiscal Sustainability███4%
Public Safety2%
Urban Design1%
Summary of Proceedings

Rochester Transit Committee Meeting - March 19, 2026

The Rochester Transit Committee met on March 19, 2026, to receive the January 2026 transit report and discuss proposed spring service changes. The committee was unable to vote due to lack of quorum but offered verbal support for the changes.

January 2026 Transit Report

The monthly transit report (for January 2026) was presented for informational purposes. Fixed route ridership in January 2026 was slightly higher than January 2025, with a completion rate of 99.96% (missed 6 trips). The riders per revenue hour was 6.4, up from 5.73 in January 2025 (target: 15). ZIPS paratransit ridership was lower than the previous year. Financial data was preliminary as some expenditures had not yet posted.

Service Changes Overview

The committee reviewed the impact of fall 2025 service changes (implemented November 26, 2025) and proposed spring 2026 changes. The fall changes were driven by a reduction in state and federal funding from 95% to 85% of operating expenses, increasing the local match requirement from 5% to 15%. After fall changes, riders per hour improved from 7 to 8, and cost per rider decreased from $24 to $21.

Proposed Spring 2026 Service Changes

The proposed changes are based on community engagement (surveys, ride-alongs, virtual and in-person sessions) and ridership data. Key proposals:

  • Northeast: Combine routes 101 and 206 into a new bidirectional route 120 running every 20 minutes (improvement from 30 minutes). Realign routes 102 (convert to peak-only) and 116 to cover lost areas.
  • Southeast: Reduce frequency on route 203 to 30-minute peak / 60-minute off-peak (previously 30 minutes all day).
  • Southwest: Convert routes 306 and 307 from loop to bidirectional to reduce travel times.
  • Northwest: Combine routes 409 and 418 into a 20-minute frequency route. Realign routes 411, 412, and 413 to improve coverage and efficiency. Some stops (e.g., on 19th Street and 41st Street) will be removed but within a 10-minute walk of alternative service.
  • Discontinue route 505: The shopper route (Tuesdays and Fridays only) costs $200,000/year and duplicates other routes.
  • Weekend service: Reduce service hours by one hour in the morning and two hours in the evening due to low ridership.

After changes, 1% of current boardings (about 26 stops with 11 average daily boardings) would be outside a quarter-mile of service. The percentage of residents within a 20-minute or better frequency would increase from 3% to 14%, and jobs within such service from 29% to 50%.

Committee Discussion

Committee members asked questions about specific route changes, the rationale for stop removals, and the financial constraints. A suggestion was made to consider late-night weekend service (11 p.m. to 2 a.m.) to support nightlife, but no immediate action was taken. The Link BRT project on 2nd Street was mentioned as a future solution for extended hours.

Key Outcomes

  • No formal vote due to lack of quorum (only three members present). Committee members verbally expressed support for the proposed changes.
  • The committee discussed the possibility of an ad hoc virtual meeting to hold a formal vote, but concluded it was not feasible due to time constraints (implementation planned for April 26, 2026).
  • The committee agreed to move forward with the changes based on verbal support and will proceed with implementation preparations.
  • Future agenda items: potential update on the transit operator bidding process (five submissions received, confidential), update on Matt Lynch's grant request (likely May meeting), and discussion of CDL guideline changes.

Meeting Transcript

Since Jesse is not here, I'll just go through. So we have two main items on here. It would be the January transit reports. This is really just for information purposes. So every month we will release a report that is late for two months. So we are in March, you are not getting the January report. In April, you'll be getting the free bill report just to give you a state of transit, what our ridership numbers are on time and what our financials are looking like. So I attached a copy of the report to the agenda. Um we have fixed route data, we have zips, which is our power transit service, and then we have our financials for both fixed route and for zips. So with fixed routes, you would see that uh, and again the green bar is for 2025 last year, and then this other color is for 2026. So we are sort of comparing what's happening this year to what happened last year, and you would see uh January ridership is a bit higher than what we had in 2025, which actually showing some growth. We have what our completed trips here, which is basically how many trips we scheduled were we able to complete. So in January, we had a completion rate of 99.96. So we've missed, I think about six trips the whole of January. And our target for completed trips is actually 100. So we are hoping that every month we are able to complete every trip we've scheduled, but this is not at the target yet, but still pretty close. Okay, you would see the green line for 2025. You could tell what some of those percentages are. So there's actually a good improvement. To measure how effective we are, we usually consider ridership per vehicle revenue hour. Our target for that is 15 riders per hour. Currently, for January 2026, we were at 6.4 riders per hour. Even with that, if you compare to what we had in January 2025, that was 5.73 all through till September of last year, that is when we were able to reach 6.7. But it seems we have started a bit strong this year with the 6.4 instead of the 5.7 we had in January. For ZIPS, which is our paratransit service, ridership was a bit lower than what we had as compared to last year. On time is also slightly low, ridership per hour is also slightly low, but uh new contractor or our subcontractor, transverse subcontractor. So translate subcontract service power transfer services to my city. So transdev only does or focuses on fixed routes and then my CD does power transit. They've been working really hard to get these numbers up. So hopefully for the rest of the months or the rest of the months and the year, we should see these numbers going up. For our financials, these numbers are not very much up to date. Some of the things we spent on are yet to hit our accounts. This is just January. So as we update these ridership or monthly reports through February, March, we are hopefully we are hoping to see these numbers show what the true state of transit is. So I'll just quickly glance through this, but they are not as accurate as you want them to be because some of our financials are still getting our accounts. So as I as I said, we would provide you with these reports every month, and you could review them and come with any questions you have on them. Okay. So we usually have service changes twice every year, mostly in the spring and the fall. And these service changes just allow us to look at our system, see what's working, what's not, and just realign service to where demand is. Okay. So I'll give an update for what happened during the fall before I go into what we'll be doing this spring. So in the fall, we discontinued four routes, which is 103, 202, 217, and 309. We made some route frequency changes to our week weekend and evening service. So in the evenings, we have service every 30 minutes from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. We change that to every hour because ridership was just not meeting up with that demand, and we just had to cut back on service a bit. Also, we realigned four routes, we had to shorten one route. And what that looked like after the changes were that we were currently at 30 routes, we moved to 26 routes. We cut back on our revenue miles and revenue hours. So what guided these changes we made in the fall was that our operating expense.

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