The Loop – a riverfront circulator bus service connecting Quad Cities downtowns Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and Sundays – will be scaled back to just two days under a plan expected to be approved by the Bettendorf City Council Tuesday (3/19).
Bettendorf received a federal transit grant to purchase the four retro-looking Loop buses in 2009, and the service has been running significant deficits every since. The revenue from the Loop is expected to total just $30,000 for the current fiscal year, while operating expenses are projected at nearly $303,000 (excluding depreciation).
The bus service would be cut to just Friday and Saturday nights from 5 p.m. to 1:20 a.m. under the curtailment outlined by city staff. The average ridership for the Saturday Loop service during fiscal 2011-12 was 396 people. On Friday nights, the average was 164, while Thursday ridership averaged 71. On Sundays, when the Loop operates from 11 a.m. to 5:20 p.m., an average of only 45 people used the service.
The cost of the service was $1 per trip, and 50 cents for seniors 60 years old and older. The hope of the circulator was that it would appeal to tourists and people frequenting entertainment spots in the downtowns. The service has stops in downtown Bettendorf, the East Village, downtown Davenport, The District (downtown Rock Island), and downtown Moline.
City officials have said they hope to reduce operating costs of the Loop – and other transit services of the city – by turning over administration/dispatching of city buses to QC MetroLink later this year. Employees of the city transit service would remain city employees under the plan, but administration and dispatching would be centralized at MetoLINK.
A public hearing is expected to be scheduled May 7 for public input into the proposed Loop route/schedule changes.
