Thursday, October 1, 2026
A group of local residents is behind a petition that calls for Intercity Transit to keep Route 41 from being eliminated as part of upcoming bus network changes.
The Intercity Transit Authority discussed the petition from West Olympia residents at a meeting on April 15, roughly three weeks before the changes will take effect.
Route 41 begins at Evergreen State College and runs along Division Street and Harrison Avenue before ending at the Olympia Transit Center.
The discussion took place after the authority heard from a resident during the public comment portion of the meeting. The bus network changes take effect on May 3.
In her testimony, Olympia resident Meghan Hall described how the removal of Route 41 would affect her.
“It will take my commute from 15 minutes to get home from downtown with two blocks of walking to a 25 minute commute including a walk of over a mile,” Hall said.
She also mentioned a second option for her, but one that would result in longer commute time and walking one-half mile along a road with no sidewalks and poor visibility for pedestrians.
“It makes it harder to get home from work. It takes what works for decades, and it seems to be throwing it away,” she added.
Olympia City Council member Robert Vanderpool, who talked with Intercity Transit General Manager Emily Bergkamp about adding the issue to the authority's agenda, said commuters who use Route 41 will now have to use a new Route 32 to go to Capital Mall. From that point, they can take the new Route 9X to head downtown.
Vanderpool, who represents the City of Olympia on the authority, asked what was stopping the transit agency from interlining Route 32 and Route 9X so that both routes go downtown.
According to the planned service changes, Route 32 will continue south toward South Puget Sound Community College after reaching Capital Mall.
Intercity Transit Planning Deputy Director Rob LaFontaine explained that changes to the plans this late in the process would strain resources.
“If we were to try to make an adjustment at this phase, I'd be concerned that we would stress ourselves out of our bus resources, we'd stress our labor resources, and it would certainly be a financial stress that we were not expecting,” LaFontaine said.
He cautioned that altering the plan now would disrupt other planned routes. He added the service changes in West Olympia are part of comprehensive changes to better serve low-income families as requested by the Olympia School District.
He also noted ridership for Route 41 has decreased despite being one of the agency’s busiest routes in the mid-2000s.
“Route 41 now routinely falls in the bottom half of ridership of our routes,” LaFontaine said.
Vanderpool expressed an interest to delay the changes for further public comment, especially since the next time the authority meets is after the service changes have been made. The authority meets once a month.
He said such a change would require a vote, but other authority members pushed back.
“This has been in the works for a long time, and the changes have been well advertised,” said authority member Carolyn Cox, who represents the City of Lacey on the governing body.
She added the agency will continue to monitor the changes and will be able to adjust the routes as they go along.
Bergkamp emphasized that the planned changes will result in a 15 percent net gain in overall service. While she acknowledged the validity of the petitioners' concerns, she noted the difficulty of balancing expansion while meeting everyone’s needs.
“Not to minimize Megan or anyone else's concerns as part of the petition, but it is difficult to try to meet all needs while looking to enhance service as the community continues to grow,” Bergkamp said.
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SamLucy
> GUESS WHY THESE HUGE BUSES HAVE DARK TINTED WINDOWS------- > Because NOBODY is inside riding them!!!! > Another Liberal WOKE business idea wasting our MILLIONS of dollars!!!!
Monday, April 20 Report this
KarenM
4.3 million trips in 2025 does not equal empty busses. Bus service can have many positives including - giving people who do not own or drive cars a way to get to work or basic destinations such as medical or shopping. Bus service can save a lot of money for a commuter. This community has consistently supported the transit system by voting to tax themselves for it.
Monday, April 20 Report this
SamLucy
> .... DOESN'T MATTER IF IT WERE "10 MILLION TRIPS"--- If the buses are 95% empty they are using fuel, cost of driver, wear & tear on tires/engines,.... > But liberals don't know how to make anything profitable (See AMTRAC, US POSTAL SERVICE, InterCity Transit,----)!!! > HECK give people cars,...and cars with chauffeurs,... and wine and snacks--- > GIVE & FREE, GIVE AND FREE!!!! > The tax dollars we're spending are mine and people who WORK! > NOT FREE LOADERS!!!!!
Tuesday, April 21 Report this
JnNwmn
Rerouting Bus 41 to the Mall seems to be shoring up private businesses by funneling students from Evergreen, and Jefferson Middle School to the Mall. Why is the Olympia School District dictating routing for working Olympians?
Tuesday, April 21 Report this
JohnGear
I live on and use the 41 route frequently, albeit not as a daily commuter. One of the positives we considered when we looked at housing was easy access to transit. So this change will not be great for us — every time we go downtown we will have to take longer and have a transfer.
But, while I personally will regret the change, when I looked at the overall system changes, I have to support it as presented. The route connected to South Puget Sound CC from upper West Side Oly is just too good to ignore.
There is no system map that will not have cases such as mine and Megan’s, where a change that is good for the system as a whole will disadvantage some people who have an optimal setup for their own personal situation on an existing route. I hope the electeds will not interfere with the system redesign and will recognize that while people like me who will suffer some inconvenience from the new routes tend to complain, there is a greater population of people who will be helped and will now have a new option for getting around that they lacked before. You never hear from them, you often hear from people who are losing something.
I was on the community advisory council for Intercity Transit for a term and I know that the staff and leadership is very cognizant of trying to absolutely maximize the utility and ridership of the system and deliver the best possible transit system. They have super fine-grain maps of the service territory and they have the tools for balancing coverage and frequency at the point that will produce the highest ridership given the resource constraints.
Tuesday, April 21 Report this
HappyOlympian
SamLucy, among your many excellent ideas and observations, I especially love the suggestion to give wine and snacks, I hope you have submitted these to the Authority Board. Your insights incredibly helpful.
Tuesday, April 21 Report this
KarenM
Samlucy - Government services are not meant to be 'profitable.' We, as a society, have decided that taxing ourselves and providing services is a greater good. Certainly police and fire are not 'profitable' enterprises.
Please provide a citation for your assertion that the busses are 95%" empty.
Tuesday, April 21 Report this
36098501
Intercity Transit (IT) provides all the data to calculate various utilization ratios, but they don’t do the calculations explicitly in any budget, or financial, reporting they provide. However, there is a good data source from which to do this calculation on your own. The link below is for 2024.
https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2024/00019.pdf
Passengers Per Hour – 11.3 per bus hour
Passengers Per Mile - .7
Average Load – 3.7 people at any given time. System wide average.
A typical bus holds 30 seating to 60 total when standing, so that is roughly 5% - 10% full depending on bus size and standing passengers.
These are statistics utilizing averages. There will be peaks and valleys with some busy days and some quiet days. In general terms, ridership for a community of our size is good, but the design of IT’s model is for peak demand and a large coverage model. This is expensive to implement which is why their capital budget tends to also look expensive – and their balance sheet is still sitting on $250mm in their cash account. They are currently well funded.
The cost per trip based on Operating Expenses only. These ratios do not include Capital Costs, or investments made for the infrastructure needed to facilitate transit. These numbers would be 30%-50% higher if yearly Capital Costs were included. These numbers assume the infrastructure is in place and these are the costs to run that existing system.
For a personal car, this would be like gas, oil, tires and general maintenance, but would exclude the price of the car itself, or the driveway and garage it is stored and repaired in, or the fuel station.
Fixed Bus - $15 per trip ($30 roundtrip)
Demand Response (Dial a Ride) - $70 per trip ($140 roundtrip)
Van Pool - $45 per trip ($90 roundtrip)
Cost Per Passenger Mile
Fixed Bus - $2.70 per passenger mile
Demand Response - $9 per passenger mile
Van Pool - $3.25 per passenger mile
If you haven’t seen these numbers before the cost can be surprising, but on a relative basis vs similar transit systems in the nation, these costs are in line. IT is not unusually expensive per mile, but it achieves that at very low occupancy which feels wasteful and an obvious opportunity to improve the cost structure. It is a difficult balance.
All public transit is expensive to provide. The boards are also quite different than a typical company board made up of industry experts from various functional areas that bring value to the company. IT's board is made up primarily of Council Members that have no experience working in transit systems, large organizations or with complicated systems. This structure can lead to decisions that prioritize coverage and equity over cost and system efficiency,.
As is everything involving the government, it is complicated, nuanced and very slow to change.
Tuesday, April 21 Report this
DudeGuyOly
^^ now that's some data
Tuesday, April 21 Report this
KarenM
98501 thanks for all of that detail on costs.
Our area has pretty low population density. Because parking is not costly and there is really not much congestion there is less incentive to use the bus. The system is really a sort of 'social service' at this point, providing transportation to those who need it and for those who choose it. If we get more density and become more urban, perhaps there will be more users. Some younger people are putting off getting their license to drive and want to live without a car.
Tuesday, April 21 Report this
Margaretp
I want to start off by saying I feel very lucky to live in a community that is willing to pay more taxes to ensure everyone has access to free public transportation. However, the route near my home is significantly changing, and I will have to plan for a longer travel time and 2 additional changes to get to destinations in Tumwater and the Westside. The new route will no longer have direct connections to the transfer hubs in Tumwater or at Capitol Mall. Maybe i missed it, but did IT survey their riders before making these huge changes? Hopefully, if other rider's speak out they will consider going back to some of the long established routes that served many of us very well for a long time.
Tuesday, April 21 Report this
JulesJames
Great numbers by 36098501! Thank you. Disappointed with the Dial-a-Ride costs. Thurston County’s healthy transit future seems more likely in transit stop infrastructure with the private sector providing rolling stock, drivers and dispatch. 30 passenger buses 10% full, limited to major arterials, just doesn’t provide a path to significant growth.
Tuesday, April 21 Report this