Letters are going out to 81 current paratransit bus riders informing them the Macon Transit Authority will no longer be providing them service following a 30-day notice.
At Tuesday’s board meeting, MTA CEO Craig Ross explained they recently discovered MTA was providing paratransit service to people living outside the regulated distance.
The TripSpark internal software program the authority acquired to provide the new Rapid Transit pilot program has other capabilities to maximize routes and services.
An analysis of paratransit trips detected dozens of riders who live outside the three-quarter mile radius of a bus route.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires paratransit bus service for those with disabilities that prevent them from using fixed routes, but only if they live within three-quarters of a mile of a regular route.
Those affected paratransit riders will have a month to figure out alternative transportation.
Paratransit sight-impaired riders Wade Horton and Jackie Glover voiced their disappointment during public comments at the end of the agenda.
“You have to look at it, because if somebody has been riding this bus a long time and you’re talking about taking them off, you’re setting yourself up for problems because they’ve been using it and they have not moved. It’s not their fault or problem,” Glover said.
“Instead of looking at ways of putting people off the bus, who evidently relies on it tremendously for the good quality of life, let’s look at ways of expanding it to areas where people are, because evidently, there is a need all over Bibb County,” Horton said.
The three-quarter mile radius also goes for a rider’s destination, so paratransit riders who live within the radius won’t be able to ride to places that are outside that radius from a regular bus route.
“We don’t serve the whole county. We have bus routes. With paratransit, they are based off of our current regular bus routes,” said MTA’s Vice Chair Lynn Farmer, who led the meeting.
TripSpark’s technology also enabled MTA to track how many paratransit riders proved to be a no-shows after scheduling a ride.
According to MTA’s monthly ridership report, of the 4,662 trips scheduled in July of 2024, 729 were not there when the bus arrived. In July of 2025, 537 riders were no-shows out of the 4,177 scheduled trips.
“This was an eye-opener about the number of trips that were canceled with no shows. We’ll start suspending people with no shows,” Ross said.
For instance, riders who have three no shows in four months may forfeit their riding privileges for a time, Ross said.
The paratransit division lost more than $750,000 in Fiscal Year 2025 that ended June 30, according to financial statements
“It’s almost $50 a trip for us to go out to somebody’s house and they not show up, and then around $50 to go back,” Ross told the board. “So, it costs us almost $100 for that round trip. And as you know, paratransit is mandated but not funded.”
MTA relies on the Georgia Department of Transportation and Macon-Bibb County to help make up the difference between the $5 roundtrip paratransit fare and the $100 cost, Ross said.
“We can’t service it. It’s just impossible. And so, we try to do the best we can with all we have,” Ross told the board.
The authority can no longer count those no-show trips for reimbursement, either, he said.
Challenges and opportunities
Adding to operating challenges at the start of the new fiscal year, funding delays mean the authority awaits $6.1 million from outside sources as of the July grant report.
Fuel costs alone for the month of July totaled nearly $60,000.
Now that school is back in session, MTA also is paying out more in overtime. They lost school bus drivers who had been working over the summer, so there are six open positions on fixed routes. Between July pay periods, overtime hours rose from 155 on fixed routes to 464 hours.
Fixed route ridership in July was up nearly 18% over last year, but there was a nearly 7.5% drop in paratransit riders.
Ross is optimistic the authority’s new Rapid Transit, the Uber-like, web-based rideshare scheduling service, shows great promise. Passengers in the pilot program increased by 100 over the last four weeks, primarily from students, resulting in a total of 235 participants in the central region of the county.
“I have a feeling when it goes countywide, we’ll get a lot more people that maybe even drive to work in the morning won’t have to, they’ll just take the rideshare down and rideshare back home,” said board member Dave Dickey.
The free pilot program, that runs between 7 a.m. and midnight Monday through Saturday, concludes at the end of October, with plans to gradually expand to south Bibb, east Bibb, west Bibb and eventually north Bibb, where there are the least number of riders, Ross said.
Passengers will be charged $5 a trip before 6 p.m. and $8 per trip between 6 p.m. and midnight.
Once the Rapid Transit service is countywide, MTA will begin providing first-and-last-mile coverage to and from the bus stop at no extra cost for those paying a regular fare.
Passengers will be carried from home to the bus stop, and back again if they live within a mile of a bus stop.
The board also bid farewell to member Ken Blair, who is leaving his post at Wesleyan College to serve as a dean at Augusta Technical College to pursue his career goals and be closer to family.
Farmer presented Blair with a framed letter written by board chair Louis Thompkins, who was absent, and had high praise for Blair’s service.
“You bring the effervescence, the energy, the enthusiasm. You did that at Wesleyan. You’ve done it across our community or everywhere you are. You bring it in a room, and it’s just such an innate part of who you are,” said Farmer, who noted Blair also was an outstanding participant in Leadership Macon. .
“This has been a great opportunity, serving on the board, hearing and serving our citizens and working with the board members and our president and CEO. I thank you guys for just an awesome experience,” Blair said.
— Civic Journalism Senior Fellow Liz Fabian covers Macon-Bibb County government entities for The Macon Newsroom and can be reached at [email protected] or 478-301-2976.
