David Sher’s ComebackTown to give voice to the people of Birmingham & Alabama.

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Today’s guest columnist is Chris Nanni.

We see it every day – those hugely expensive MAX buses—trundling down the street carrying one or two passengers.

It looks like another example of our public dollars not being deployed in the most efficient manner.

Does it make sense to take a half-million-dollar piece of equipment, operate it at low capacity on fixed routes, while contributing to traffic congestion and air pollution?

Well say good-bye to the status quo and hello to efficiency and creativity.

The Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority (BJCTA) and the City of Birmingham are turning public transit on its head.

People complain that Alabama has an insufficient public transportation system. What many don’t realize is that we are one of only three states that prohibits state funding for public transportation (the other two being Hawaii and Nevada). Interestingly, our state constitution was amended in 1952 (around the time of the Montgomery bus boycotts) to exclude funding of public transportation.

This legacy of not funding public transportation means that we have become a car dependent region. Over the past decades jobs have moved out of the inner city to the suburbs while access to public transportation hasn’t followed. Research from the Brookings Institute shows that if you have a car or reliable transportation, you will have access to 100 times the number of jobs within a 30 minute commute…100 times.

Not surprisingly, in local surveys transportation is identified as one of the top barriers to opportunity, amenities and services that directly impact our quality of life. If we are concerned with economic development and want to build an inclusive economy, then we have to focus on developing a more accessible transportation network.

Adding a bus – at the cost of over $500K – to a fixed route with limited ridership is not the answer to our dilemma. The long-term solution is adequate funding. In the interim, we have to seek creative solutions.

That is why, in 2019, the Community Foundation and our Catalyst Fund donors entered into a partnership with Via Transportation and the City of Birmingham to provide funding for the launch of a microtransit pilot service called Birmingham On-Demand.

The pilot, which launched in December 2019, was set up to serve an eight-mile zone encompassing downtown and the Westside of Birmingham. The zone is serviced by seven professionally driven vans that utilize a sophisticated ride sharing software that connects drivers with passengers. Riders use an app to request a ride and can be picked up and dropped off anywhere within the zone. There are no fixed routes, and each ride costs only $1.50.

Since its launch, Birmingham On-Demand has had a consistently high satisfaction rating with pick up times averaging less than 10 minutes. Passengers using microtransit have seen an hour-and-a-half point-to-point bus ride now take about 15 minutes. As one rider states, “Birmingham On-Demand is a very economical and convenient means of transportation that allows you the comfort, feel, and flexibility of having your own car without the hassles of having 10 stops between your destination.”

In fact, Birmingham On-Demand has proven so successful – surpassing 200,000 rides over the last two years – that there has been a call to expand the coverage area. In response, the City of Birmingham added 19 additional neighborhoods east of the airport to the coverage area in November 2022.

Birmingham On-Demand now covers around 22% of the City’s geography. Furthermore, the BJCTA recently announced that it has coordinated with the City to expand hours in the downtown zone while expanding microtransit in additional service areas.

At the Community Foundation, our mission is to be a catalyst for transformational change in our region. We are excited to be a part of this innovative solution for transportation in our region. With creative approaches like microtransit along with Birmingham’s recent addition of the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT), our community is thinking creatively and collaborating to accelerate positive, region-level change.

Chris Nanni has served as the President and CEO of the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham for the past nine years. As the largest foundation in the state, the Community Foundation works with philanthropists, nonprofits and civic leaders igniting passion for transformational change in our five-county region. He lives with his wife, Allison, and three children in Homewood.

David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown. He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).

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