EDITOR’S NOTE: Today marks the third day featuring a series of stories over four days that examines the issues surrounding public transportation in Richland County.
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Darian Nagle-Gamm didn’t hesitate when asked what made Iowa City’s recent public transit study a success.
“Communication. That was the most successful part … really maximizing public outreach and information providing,” said Nagle-Gamm, director of transportation services for the city of about 75,000 residents in eastern Iowa.
The community, located about 520 miles west of Mansfield, launched changes to its public transit bus system in August after the same kind of transit development study planned in Richland County during 2022.
“From our website and digital messaging, to press releases, to email list-serves, meeting with private groups and stakeholders, information booths at our bus interchanges … our goal was to overcommunicate (planning efforts),” she said.
More than 4,600 points of contact with the public were achieved during the process for the transit system that had annual ridership of 1.4 million annually before the pandemic. Half of those rides were trips related to the University of Iowa.
“I think that really helped us in the end deliver a (transportation) product that was the most responsive to the community’s needs,” Nagle-Gamm said.
Iowa City had not undergone a transit development plan since 1984, according to Nagle-Gamm, who assumed her post in 2018 after a decade spent as a senior transportation engineering planner for Johnson County, Iowa.
“The service had been tweaked here and there over the years as the community grew,” she said, “but you get to the point where we needed to start from scratch, reimagine the system and set the stage for the future.”
Join Richland Source City Editor Carl Hunnell at Relax It’s Just Coffee, 105 N. Main St., for “Coffee and Transit Talk” on Thursday, Jan. 6, at noon. Read the series and join Hunnell for an hour-long conversation to offer your thoughts on what improvements the public county bus service should consider.
Can’t make it? Email your thoughts to carl.hunnell@richlandsource.com.
Request For Proposals (RFP)
Just as Richland County Transit plans to do in 2022, Iowa City sought requests for proposals from transit consultants, selecting the national firm of NelsonNygaard.
Iowa City combined its efforts with the nearby city of Coralville and also the University of Iowa CAMBUS public transit system in the Iowa City Area Transit Study, a study with a $225,000 price tag.
Nagle-Gamm suggests RCT officials carefully plan their objectives when writing the RFP.
“Unless you are a consultant, you likely have never done one of these,” she said. “It took some time. We read a lot of other RFPs. The good thing about transit is it’s public. You can research what a lot of other communities have done.
“You don’t want to realize you missed something really critical,” she said.
“We got some great responses to our RFP. It was a tough choice. Nelson/Nygaard provided outstanding references and they didn’t disappoint,” Nagle-Gamm said.
Iowa City kicked off phase one in August 2019, spending a few months on just data collection and factfinding through a myriad of sources, including examining entrance/exit points in the transit system, rider preference surveys, online surveys and other digital efforts.
“We went into factfinding mode, just listening to the community. We did a lot of public outreach. We got a tremendous amount of feedback. We had really well-attended public input sessions, which we were thrilled about,” Nagle-Gamm said.
Armed with the information, Nelson/Nygaard helped Iowa City devise three different scenarios, including route configurations. Transit officials then went back to the public for more input in January 2020.
“We came back with a preferred transit system design in March 2020 … and then the pandemic hit,” Nagle-Gamm said.
“We were fortunate that we had gotten far enough along in terms of public feedback,” she said, “because then we had to press pause.
“Trying to run a transit system during a pandemic was not something any of us had done. We took our time and it was August before things leveled out and we felt comfortable picking up the transit study again.”
Transit officials went back to City Council in the fall of 2020 and told legislators what they had learned. Nagle-Gamm said council members provided direction and she and her team went back to work on the plan.
“We knew the community had desires that out-stripped our ability to fund them. Part of what we asked the community to tell us what enhancements they would like to see and we then asked the consultants what those would cost,” she said.
Iowa City City Council approves plan
Ultimately, Iowa City City Council in June 2021 approved the plan, which called for consolidated bus routes, shorter wait times and a pilot program for a Sunday service, making it a seven-day-a-week transit system. It also married rates and streamlined ties with Coralville and the university system.
The city’s new system reduced fixed routes to 13 from 26 and focused on main arteries and out-and-backs, rather then circuitous routes that divert into local streets. Areas of the city with low ridership were absorbed into other routes or service was reallocated, Nagle-Gamm said.
“Our route changes were designed to be revenue-neutral, a reallocation of services designed to meet better the needs of today,” she said.
Adding the Sunday service pilot program will cost about $780,000 annually, according to Nagle-Gamm. Like Richland County, the Iowa City transit system has multiple federal, state and local funding sources.
The plan also calls for new later-evening service to some areas and the potential of on-demand partnerships to provide late-night/overnight service when transit is not in service.
Unlike RCT, the Iowa City service has a local dedicated property tax levy that supports the system.
Other enhancements, including a fare-free system, were explored to Nagle-Gamm, who admitted there were trade-offs in the plan, such as some neighborhoods having a further walk to the bus stop.
“Some tough decisions had to be made,” she said. “(Before the study), we kept hearing an increasing number of requests from the public to enhance our system.
“Everyone agreed to work together on a process to optimize our system,” Nagle-Gamm said.
