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Courtesy of BJCTA
BJCTA Bus Route 3
Homewood plans to add the Wildwood Walmart stop to the southern end of Route 3, shown, which travels from downtown through west Birmingham and around Red Mountain before entering Homewood. This would replace the stop on Route 39, which ran through Homewood and is being eliminated.
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Courtesy of BJCTA
BJCTA Bus Route 42/31
Homewood plans to condense its Route 42 with Route 31 into the single route shown, which travels from downtown to Vestavia Hills and Hoover and will incorporate stops at Brookwood Village and Brookwood Medical Center.
While a set of proposed changes to bus routes in Homewood will increase the number of visits per day for some stops in the city, several riders will find their daily commute gets harder, not easier.
The Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority held the first of four public hearings about route changes on the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 9 at Homewood City Hall. Route changes in Homewood, Mountain Brook and several other Birmingham routes are set to take effect on Nov. 5.
The Homewood City Council has pursued consolidation of its routes in an effort to reduce the budget allocation for the bus system. The council voted to support these changes at its Oct. 8 meeting.
The changes would entirely eliminate Route 39, which travels from downtown through Edgewood to the Wildwood shopping center.
The Wildwood Walmart stop on Route 39 would be added to Route 3, which serves a series of downtown Birmingham stops, but travels through West Birmingham around Red Mountain instead of through Homewood.
Joshua Johnson, who was one of the representatives of the BJCTA at Tuesday's meeting, said the number of people getting on and off most of Route 39's Homewood stops has been consistently low, with one stop seeing just six passengers enter or exit in an entire year.
"In their eyes, they just didn't see the ridership," Johnson said of the council's decision to cut Route 39.
Adding the Walmart stop to Route 3 would increase the number of bus visits at the Walmart from 15 to 18 per day, Ward 1 Councilor Britt Thames said. However, travel time is longer to get from one end of Route 3 to the other.
Rosedale resident Madolyn Wyatt attended the BJCTA public hearing because she has ridden the Route 39 bus from a stop near her house to the Walmart, where she works night shifts, for many years. While she sometimes can get a ride from a friend, the elimination of Route 39 means she'll be "stuck" without transportation many days.
Wyatt said the changes mean she'll likely have to ride the Route 3 bus all the way to downtown Birmingham and find a new bus, such as the U.S. 280 route from downtown, to then take her to Homewood. Her current commute time is about 20 minutes, but a new route would likely take her an hour or more.
"That's asinine to me," said Wyatt, who has worked at the Wildwood Walmart 25 years.
"There is a bus going there [to Walmart], but it's not going to do me any good."
Other riders present at the meeting spoke to the BJCTA representatives about their concerns for the elimination of stops along Broadway Street and other areas of Homewood that would impact people using the bus for commutes or errands.
The changes would also merge the stops on Route 42, which passes through 18th Street and U.S. 31 to Brookwood Medical Center, with Route 31, which travels between downtown, Vestavia Hills and Hoover. The Wildwood Walmart stop and the Route 42 stops merged with Route 31 would begin to see Saturday service starting Nov. 5.
A notice of route changes from the BJCTA states that merging Routes 42 and 31 would reduce stops in Homewood and at Brookwood Village and Brookwood Medical Center to seven times on weekdays, though it would add five trips on weekends.
An existing route that serves U.S. 280 from the BJCTA's downtown intermodal facility would add Homewood's bus stop on the north end of 18th Street South to its route, as well.
Route 14, which travels Oxmoor Road and the Palisades area in addition to Birmingham neighborhoods on the other side of Red Mountain, would not change.
While these changes take effect Nov. 5, the Homewood City Council is also pursuing the addition of Homewood stops to the Magic City Connector, a route linking major stops from Five Points South to Uptown and Topgolf, including the Birmingham City Hall, Birmingham Museum of Art, Linn Park and UAB.
Thames said the Magic City Connector would run every 15 minutes from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and every 30 minutes from 6 to 10 p.m. from Monday to Friday, and every 30 minutes during Saturday service hours.
Johnson said that funding for the Connector expansion will come from the Federal Highway Administration's Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) grant program, so it will have to go through the BJCTA's committees for approval. He anticipated it could begin service in January.
The remaining BJCTA meetings are as follows:
- Tuesday, Oct. 9, 5:30 p.m. — MAX Transit Administrative Offices, 1801 Morris Ave.
- Thursday, Oct. 11, 4:30 p.m. — Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce (Fire Training Room), 101 Hoyt Lane
- Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2 p.m. — MAX Transit Administrative Offices, 1801 Morris Ave.
Bus route maps, timetables and other information can be found at maxtransit.org.
