Coast RTA plans to move Ocean Boulevard buses to Kings Highway

Major changes are being planned for Coast RTA’s Myrtle Beach service, including the elimination of two Ocean Boulevard routes.

The Grand Strand’s public bus system expects to make the changes effective April 1, but transit officials have been meeting with residents and riders to discuss the proposal. Coast officials will accept written comments about the changes through March 1.

General Manager Brian Piascik said the most noticeable adjustment would be for riders who take the buses to Ocean Boulevard stops. Those users include many tourism industry workers.

Under the proposed plan, the buses running along North Ocean Boulevard and South Ocean Boulevard would be moved to Kings Highway.

“There really is a give and take in terms of why we’re doing that,” Piascik said. “It really is trying to find that balance between making people walk from Kings Highway over to Ocean Boulevard, which in most cases they’re close enough to where that should be a reasonable walk. … [We’re] balancing that with having the bus being there when it’s supposed to be there.”

The biggest challenge for the bus service, Piascik said, has been getting the buses to operate on schedule.

“Our service interruptions and on-time performance has really been affected by the changes in the streetscape on Ocean Boulevard in terms of putting in the islands,” he said. “We have our fender benders down there. There’s pedestrians everywhere. It’s almost to the point where they should think about turning it into a pedestrian-only [area].”

City spokesman Mark Kruea said Piascik plans to explain the proposed changes to Myrtle Beach City Council during the council’s workshop Tuesday morning. Kruea said there are pluses and minuses to the shift. Traffic on Kings Highway should move faster, but riders will have to walk farther to reach their destinations.

“There’s no perfect solution,” Kruea said.

Another change Coast officials are considering is ending service at 8 p.m. – the time the last bus would leave Myrtle Beach (other than the entertainment shuttle) for Conway. Coast has traditionally extended its hours to 11 p.m. during the summer, but Piascik said he’d like to keep the same schedule throughout the year.

Internal research showed the service wasn’t used much late at night last summer.

“If you think about workers in the tourism industry, a lot of them are maintenance and housekeeping that get off at like 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon,” Piascik said. “That has to be the bulk of our ridership.”

Over the last few weeks, Coast officials have met with residents to talk about the recommended changes and to ask for suggestions for improving the bus service.

Coast spokeswoman Michelle Cantey noted that the bus service is reconstituting a special panel called the Service Advisory Committee, which will primarily consist riders and will provide the organization’s board with feedback about the system.

Piascik said the board will discuss the possible changes next month.

“I want to try to set a service level that we can afford for an extended period of time based on level funding,” he said. “So this maxes out what we can provide based on our funding and accomplishes all those goals that I laid out in terms of having a system that you can make the same trip in October that you can in June or July so that we get consistency month to month.”

This story was originally published February 22, 2016 at 7:52 PM with the headline "Coast RTA plans to move Ocean Boulevard buses to Kings Highway."