The COMET studying possible ‘reimagining’ of bus system
Columbia’s regional bus system is seeking the public’s help in reshaping its transit network in coming years.
The COMET — which serves Richland County and parts of Lexington — is in the midst of a two-year effort to reimagine bus service in Columbia. On Thursday, the transit system released a pair of concepts for a revamped network, and said it will be seeking citizens’ help in the process.
The bus system will host virtual public meetings on Dec. 2 and Dec. 9, and is asking people to take surveys about their preferences on the initiative’s Reimagine The COMET website.
COMET CEO John Andoh said Thursday that the bus system hasn’t had a deep study of its network in more than a decade.
“We want to study the transit system and see how we could make it better,” Andoh said. “We haven’t done a comprehensive study like this since 2009. This is going to be a clean slate to look at the transit system holistically, since it hasn’t been studied in that manner since the COMET was created, and many of the routes still follow old streetcar lines from the 1800s.”
The overall study will involve copious public input, Andoh said. Any large scale overhaul of the system would have to be approved by the transit system’s board, though the CEO was quick to note that a number of other entities — the City of Columbia, Richland County, area colleges, nonprofits and others — are also being engaged in the process.
While the study is still in an early stage, a pair of ideas being pitched for a potential system overhaul are a “coverage concept” and a “ridership concept.”
In the coverage concept, most areas that have COMET service currently would continue to have it. It would feature shorter walks to bus stops, but it would also mean longer wait times, as the routes would be spread out to cover a larger geographic area. This concept would ensure bus service in more places, including low-density population areas.
Meanwhile, in the ridership concept the wait times for buses would be shorter, at about every 15 minutes, and transferring between routes would be faster. However, some lower-density population areas could lose bus service.
“It’s basically looking at where people are riding our buses, looking at where jobs, population centers are, and coming up with recommendations on how we design a network within our available resources for Richland and Lexington County residents.”
Ridership for The COMET in 2019 was about 2.645 million, according to the National Transit Database. That was a 14-year high, and up slightly from 2018, when it was at about 2.641 million. The system’s annual budget clocks in at about $26 million, and comes from a number of sources at the local and federal levels. It is largely funded by the Richland County transportation penny tax, which accounts for about $18 million of the system’s budget each year.
That penny funding will come to an end when the bus system has received a total of about $301 million, or when the oft-controversial transportation tax sunsets in 2035, whichever occurs first.
Between in-house administrators, contracted drivers, mechanics, dispatchers and others, roughly 250 people are employed through The COMET.
