Shuttle service starts with 99, tapers to 0
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

Ready to roll STAFF PHOTO BY MURRAY JUDSON Ferry shuttle operators Diane Heagren, left, and Sylvia Perry wait in vain on Wednesday morning, Aug. 1, for people to board their buses at the ferry landing. City records show that shuttle ridership started off with a bang on Monday, July 23, but tapered to zero on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week; they can offer no reason for the slump.

The bottom has apparently fallen out of the ferry shuttle market.

Records kept by the city show 99 people rode the shuttle the first week of operation, starting Monday, July 23.

This week - starting Sunday - 45 people have ridden, but on Tuesday and Wednesday, drivers had no passengers at all.

The big surge in ridership was over the weekend. On Saturday, July 28, 35 riders boarded the shuttles. On Sunday, July 29, 26 people rode.

"Many of those riders on the weekend were people who were staying in Aransas Pass and who came over here shopping," said Pat Garrett, executive assistant at city hall.

"They had been going to walk to shops, but the shuttle drivers told them they were welcome to ride. They just had to comply with the schedule."

Shuttles run seven days a week, aiming to take people from the ferry landings between 6-9 a.m. and return them from 3-6 p.m.

The shuttles are aimed at people who work in Port Aransas and who take the ferry to work. The shuttles allow workers to take advantage of the free park-and-ride on the Harbor Island side of the ferry route, ride the ferry as a pedestrian passenger, and take the shuttle to their workplaces.

Garrett was unable to come up with a reason why nobody rode the shuttle on Tuesday or Wednesday, except to suggest that people won't ride as pedestrians if the wait in the vehicle line is reasonably short.

"They'll wait in the (vehicle) line if the wait is 15-20 minutes," Garrett said. "They won't wait if it's a long wait, such as an hour or so."

She said ferry lines have been relatively short this week, possibly accounting for workers' willingness to sit in their cars instead of parking and walking to the ferry.

Garrett said an announcement that drivers would begin charging 25 cents a ride next week probably didn't affect ridership this week.

"After all, it's still free this week," she pointed out.

The Corpus Christi Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), which runs the ferry shuttles, has said it would offer the ferries free for the first two weeks, and then start charging a quarter a ride.

The ferry is being run on a test basis through Oct. 31. The RTA wants to find out if enough people are interested in riding from the ferry landing to work places to make the service a permanent one.

The RTA also operates the Port Aransas Trolley, which carries people around town on a daily basis at a quarter a ride; the Flexi-B, which is an on-call service to take riders to the south side bus hub in Corpus Christi; and Route 99, a seasonal service that brings workers up State Hwy. 361 from Corpus Christi.