PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A new bus route is coming to Oshkosh.
People will soon be able to hop on a bus in Oshkosh and ride to north Oshkosh or Neenah, where they can connect with Valley Transit. The routes are an expansion of the GO Connect program.
“What a lot of transit systems are doing now is something called micro-transit, which basically, is a shared ride taxi service,” said Transportation Director Jim Collins. “It’s more of an on-demand model, so we run the service when people need it or when they request it, versus running it all day, every day.”
The new GO Connect proposal includes a $3 ride from Oshkosh to the “red zone.” That’s an area in northern Oshkosh, which includes the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office, jail and Sunnyview Expo Center.
That’s in addition to the offered $5 one-way ride from Oshkosh to Neenah and vice versa.
An Uber from the Oshkosh GO Transit station up to the Neenah Transit Center costs roughly $25. That’s significantly more expensive than the proposed $5 for the GO Transit system. But the question is, how many people will be using this route?
“We’re providing 5-6 rides a day. With the expansion of the service, we’re estimating that we provide 15-16 rides a day,” Collins said.
It’s not huge ridership. However, for those people that need it, it is important, because a lot of them don’t have another option to get to work.
Collins says the rides are funded by a federal grant, alongside a partnership with a local cab service. The $5 rides will cost the city, on average, about $30.
“For the rider, it is a much better deal than using one of the Uber/Lyft type models, but the reason it is is because of the grant funding,” he explained.
You can reserve a ride on their website by 4:30 p.m. the day before it’s needed. The service will run from 6:15 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. Monday through Sunday.
The new GO Connect program is set to run from April until March of next year. At that time, GO Transit will determine if the pilot program should be extended. Collins hopes the program expands to other areas in Oshkosh in the future.
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