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Lane Transit District is increasing service

People walk under a canopy at a bus station
Karen Richards
/
KLCC
LTD riders await departures at the downtown Eugene station on Sept. 4, 2024. Many routes will see increased service on weekdays.

Lane Transit District is expanding its bus service on Monday. An increase in demand and a successful hiring effort make it possible.

LTD spokesperson Anni Katz said LTD lost many operators during the pandemic, as was the case industry-wide. She told KLCC the agency hired nearly 50 new drivers over the past several months, which enables an increase to weekday service on many neighborhood routes.

And, she said, the EmX routes will run every 10 minutes, instead of every 15.

“My favorite thing about being in a bigger city is that when you want to go wait for the subway, you just go stand on the platform, and within a few minutes, a train shows up," said Katz. "And we are trying to get to that place, especially with our EmX, where you can just show up to the platform, and within a few minutes of you being there, within 10 minutes of you being there, a bus will show up and get you to where you need to go.”

Katz said LTD typically sees more ridership this time of year from high school and college students, as well as people returning to on-site work. The agency is hoping the additional service encourages even more people to use the bus.

“The more frequent your service is, the more usable your service is," said Katz. "Then you get more people onto the service. Waiting 15 minutes is different from waiting 10, so getting it down to 10, and hopefully lower, it makes the service more usable for everybody.”

The updated bus schedules are listed on the Rider’s Guide at LTD dot org.

Karen Richards joined KLCC as a volunteer reporter in 2012, and became a freelance reporter at the station in 2015. In addition to news reporting, she’s contributed to several feature series for the station, earning multiple awards for her reporting.
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