Photo courtesy of Via.
Homewood City Council is considering implementing a micro-transit pilot program
Homewood City Council is considering implementing a micro-transit pilot program that would connect residents across the city.
People in Homewood may soon have a new mode of transportation: a transit system that carries them from one point in the city to another.
The Homewood City Council has again heard from the Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority and Via Transportation about initiating micro-transit in Homewood. The feature would begin with a pilot program with city leaders able to gauge the program’s popularity through ridership numbers.
If the program proves popular, as members of the City Council think it could, there could be demand to expand the initial structure to one that is at least a bit broader.
Mayor Jennifer Andress said the notion of micro-transit has come before the council previously.
Photo courtesy of Via.
Via’s micro-transit service would allow Homewood residents to use an app to request rides
Via’s micro-transit service would allow Homewood residents to use an app to request rides, offering a flexible, on-demand alternative to traditional fixed bus routes.
“We’ve talked about this for a long time,” said Andress, who is one of two holdovers from the prior mayor-council government. “The previous council, we talked about it for years, and here it is again at the new council. Our friends at the Community Foundation [of Greater Birmingham] have been so patient with us, but it is time to make a decision [about] doing the pilot.”
In the April 13 pre-council meeting, City Manager Cale Smith presented an amendment to provide micro-transit service with the city of Homewood. Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham will grant BJCTA up to $792,000 to provide this pilot service from July 2026 through September 2027.
After September 2027, Smith wrote, the city may choose to do more or less micro-transit, depending on usage and data. However, Homewood would be responsible for payment.
In the pre-council agenda item, Smith was cautious about how the city proceeded with the venture.
“Micro-transit is a great opportunity for transportation in Homewood,” he wrote, “but knowing what I currently know about our budget, an additional $600,000 [on top of the approximate $400,000 that goes to BJCTA] is unsustainable.”
At press time, the Homewood City Council was weighing if the city will take part in the pilot project.
After the April 13 pre-council meeting, Andress said that existing BJCTA fixed routes run north and south.
Photo courtesy of Via.
Via’s micro-transit service would allow Homewood residents to use an app to request rides
Via’s micro-transit service would allow Homewood residents to use an app to request rides, offering a flexible, on-demand alternative to traditional fixed bus routes.
“This is an opportunity to go east-west,” the mayor said. “Back when the Magic City Connector was coming out, we talked about a sort of BRT [Bus Rapid Transit route] along Lakeshore from Walmart to Samford to Brookwood. This kind of fits that model.”
Chris Nanni and Gus Heard-Hughes of the Community Foundation and Julius Bryant of Via made the presentation to the council. During the presentation, council member Chris Lane expressed excitement about the potential benefits for merchants whose customers can patronize them without having to find a parking space.
Councilman Nick Sims was also enthusiastic but cautious.
“I think it would be a great service to our residents,” Sims said. “There’s some apprehension about the eventual cost of it and how to budget for that. But really, by implementing the pilot, we would get an idea of how much residents use it [and] the value that it is, not only for transportation but also to offset costs, potentially for parking and a positive impact on traffic, even with people not [driving] by themselves.
“There are a lot of potential benefits,” the councilman said. “But during that pilot program, we’d also have to think about what that value is and compare it to future budget considerations.”
Sims said the city is not required to provide transportation. That said, the city’s aim is to positively impact the quality of life of its citizens.
“There’s a whole host of what you could call public services which aren’t required to be provided,” Sims said. “It could become our decision in the future if we’re paying fixed bus route costs and we’re paying micro-transit costs. Maybe the data we get gives us an idea of how much to prioritize one over the other.”
Sims noted that Alabama is a state that doesn’t have public transportation funding. Homewood thus is not able to supplement its public transit costs to the level of communities where their state supplements a rail system.
“People, regardless of income range, use the system because it’s convenient and of a certain quality,” he said. “Without additional funding from the state, we’re kind of putting together a fixed route bus system that is underfunded under our current structure. Micro-transit could be the solution.”
Bryant said Via’s micro-transit operation will provide very timely data concerning ridership and timeliness of service.
“We would have the data at that point [after the trial period] because [they mentioned] how responsive they are with data,” Andress said. “We would have that data at that point. Then we also have the citizen survey. We also have a comprehensive plan to be able to say this is what our citizens say they want.”
Citizen input on Homewood’s comprehensive plan included discussions of mass transit. More information on that can be found online at thehomewoodstar.com/news.
If the city proceeds with the pilot program, the resulting data will bear out if the pilot was successful or not, the mayor said. “That’s where we put all that data together and make that decision based on the data.”
But the council must decide if it will take the next step with the pilot.
“It comes a time when you’re not going to know how it’s going to work until you do it,” Andress said. “We just have to make that call if we’re going to do it or not. The time is here. We have talked about this for many years, but the time is here.”
