The Ohio Department of Transportation will fund $13.5 million each state fiscal year, now until 2027, to transit agencies statewide through its Workforce Mobility Partnership Program.
The program allows transit agencies to apply for grants that fund a transit line connecting people to workforce centers, such as factories, business parks and office locations, according to Matt Bruning, ODOT press secretary.
The Workforce Mobility Partnership Program reached its expiration date under House Bill 23, which ran from July 2023 to June 2025. The program was reestablished with House Bill 54, continuing funding from July 2025 to June 2027.
The Hocking Athens Perry Community Action, the non-profit community action organization responsible for the Athens Public Transit, was awarded $160,000 to purchase a new bus in accordance with the Workforce Mobility Partnership Program.
Ben Ziff, HAPCAP mobility coordinator, said HAPCAP applied for funding for a 30-foot bus, equaling $160,000. He also mentioned HAPCAP has to provide a 20% local match for the project, which rounds to $40,000.
The bus will be used to expand service on Line 3, which runs from The Market on State on East State Street to Andover Road in Athens. The line runs once an hour, Monday to Friday, 6:48 a.m. to 9:56 p.m., with Saturday runs temporarily suspended.
“We have been reaching capacity on this line in particular, the past few months, with only standing room available and sometimes not even that,” Ziff wrote in an email. “With Line 3 being our busiest line, this will definitely help alleviate some of the capacity issues we've been running into.”
The new bus will be an improvement over the current buses along that corridor, increasing the capacity from about 12-16 passengers to 30.
“We never want to have to turn someone away from the bus, but when it's full, it's full,” Ziff wrote. “Hopefully, we won't run into this issue once we have the larger bus on the road.”
In addition to the new Athens bus, Bruning added that in Ohio, there are 28 different projects from 15 different transport agencies in 16 counties.
For example, neighboring Washington County will be purchasing additional vans as part of its Community Action Bus Line, which serves the Marietta area.
“Since a lot of our vans are side loading, we're getting some vans that are rear loading, which will be helpful for some of the larger passengers or passengers that can't sit straight up in a wheelchair,” Stephen Collins, housing and transportation program director for the Washington-Morgan Community Action, said.
The new vans will also allow for an expansion of “non-emergency transit” trips, which connect people in Marietta to regional hubs such as Cleveland, Columbus and Pittsburgh.
The Workforce Mobility Partnership program has already been a success in other parts of the state, such as the Butler County Regional Transit Authority in Southwest Ohio, which runs a bus line to and from Cincinnati.
“This year in this particular program, they have applied and been awarded money to expand that program, so obviously it's working well enough that they've decided to expand it,” Bruning said. “I think they're adding five or six additional vehicles.”
The bus service improvements help to serve one part of the community: those without access to vehicles, according to Bruning.
“We don't want to have a situation where those people say, ‘Well, gee, I live in a part of the state where I just can't get to a job consistently because I don't have a car,’” Bruning said. “This will hopefully help knock down those barriers, and that's really the idea here is to be able to connect people to those job employment centers, no matter where they live.”
