Uber-style rides seen as a tool for public transit in rural and urban Missouri

For about as long as passengers have stepped onto buses, public transportation in most of Missouri has meant fixed routes and schedules. The idea of on-demand, point-to-point service as a public amenity was unheard of. Today, those rides are being offered in Kansas City and St. Louis. Smaller Missouri cities are mulling whether microtransit — think publicly funded Uber-like service — could fill some of their public transportation needs. And rural communities are touting microtransit as a powerful tool for getting people to work and essential appointments.

The growing interest in microtransit comes partly in response to anemic bus ridership. The decline started before the pandemic and accelerated after it hit. Transit services responded by cutting routes, which meant ever fewer riders. Now communities are exploring whether more Uber-style on-demand rides could meet the needs of their riders — and their budgets. Reviews of the experiments so far are mixed.

“We’re not in love with how it’s evolved,” said Jessica Gershman, the assistant executive director of planning at Metro Transit St. Louis.

She pointed to the city’s use of the on-demand program as partial fill-in for buses throughout the pandemic. Now, with recruitment of drivers back up, the city is looking at ways to make microtransit fulfill its original purpose: connecting riders to existing routes.