Rock Hill bus service is rolling amid the coronavirus threat. What to know and do.
Rock Hill hasn’t had its bus service long, but already it’s proving essential for many riders. That presents the city a challenge to keep those buses moving during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
“We want to make sure people do feel safe,” said David Vehaun, city manager.
Vehaun updated Rock Hill City Council on Monday night amid changes to the My Ride Rock Hill service. Also on Monday the city announced direct paratransit service should be limited to essential trips like to work, healthcare appointments, pharmacies and grocery stores. Vehaun told council the downtown route won’t run for now, nor will Sunday bus service.
“Most of the folks that would use the other three routes can walk a distance to a bus stop that’s pretty close to where they were in the downtown route,” Vehaun said, “so it was not as necessary in that respect.”
Even with social distancing measures recommended during the pandemic, ridership numbers were higher last week than the city projected.
“We know we have folks in our community that have need to use transit to get to grocery and to jobs and those sorts of things, and we’re doing our best to make sure we can maintain those operations,” Vehaun said.
In January, My Ride had its first week of more than 5,000 riders. That milestone came just more than six months into the new service. The city and transit officials who helped with the program lauded My Ride last year as unique not only for its free service, but its all-electric fleet.
Still, coronavirus is a new challenge.
Councilwoman Nikita Jackson said Monday night she’d received phone calls related to the impact coronavirus and social distancing might have on bus service.
“There was some concern,” she said.
Several safety measures are in place. Some aren’t new.
“We clean our buses daily, and sometimes twice a day,” Vehaun said.
Now, though, there is a greater focus on cleaning. Staff uses electrostatic guns to sanitize buses regularly.
“We’ve increased our disinfecting efforts, what we’re doing there,” Vehaun said. “We’ve also increased the frequency of cleaning all of our transit buses.”
Along with schedule changes, the way riders use the buses changed too.
“We are requesting that passengers only use the rear of the bus,” Vehaun said. “That helps keep our drivers a safe distance from passengers that are on the bus. And we ask that folks on the bus are maintaining those distances.”
The exception is riders in need of handicap access. They still will use the front of the bus. Otherwise passengers should use the rear doors to get on and off the buses.
For updates as they’re posted, riders can visit myriderockhill.com.
