Can Wausau turn the Metro Ride bus around?

The Wausonian sat down with Metro Ride's new director, Arran Hersey, to talk about his plan to end the Metro Ride doom loop

Arran Hersey at his office in Metro Ride headquarters south of Forest Street.

On a rainy Thursday afternoon, tucked inside the offices of Wausau’s Metro Ride headquarters south of downtown and across the street from the city’s dog park, Metro Ride’s new director pulls down a 2022 plan the city commissioned for turning around Metro Ride.

It turns out, he hadn’t been aware of it until I asked him about it prior to our interview (for full disclosure, I accidentally said 2021 when I reached out, and later realized it was 2022 not 2021).

And that’s especially interesting because when Hersey told me his strategy, he seemed to be following the playbook that plan presented almost exactly.

Hersey is the third director to lead Metro Ride in the last couple of years. Greg Seubert, who had served the city for four decades, retired at the start of 2023. Replacing him was Matthew Rosenbloom-Jones, who started in March 2023. He resigned later that year, telling The Wausonian he didn’t feel he had enough support from city hall, at the time helmed by Mayor Katie Rosenberg.

Hersey started March 15 on the heels of Rosenbloom’s departure, from a higher level position at TriMet system in Portland where he worked for a decade. He started as a part-time bus operator and worked his way up through the ranks to a high-ranking department at the TriMet system.

(For his part, Hersey says he has gotten along just fine with both Rosenberg, who hired him, as well as Mayor Doug Diny, and enjoys working with the commission.)

Part one of his plan is already underway. The city is in the midst of ordering the kind of technology that’s commonplace in many bus services, but has been notably absent at Metro Ride. (A company is putting together the specs for the tech they want, which will then go out to bid.)

And the rest of his plan also seems similar. Hersey has plans around things like micro transit, altering bus routes and responding to rider feedback. The VW settlement money (more on that later) will help the city get 10 new buses. And business partnerships are in the works.

If there is one thing that might be a little different: Hersey flipped the strategy when it came to building out Metro Ride beyond Wausau’s borders - he wants to fix things here first. Once the city sees some success with Metro Ride, he says, then he has something more tangible to bring to the other communities.

For those not in the know, Metro Ride is struggling. The bus service has been in something of a doom loop since I first came back to Wausau in 2014. The last route outside the city ended at the start of 2015, the next year. Ridership, and thus fares, continued to decline since then.

Through Dec. 1, in 2023 there were 372,720 riders on Metro Ride buses. But this year through 2024, there were only 348,737. (Interestingly, fare revenue not counting the Wausau School District increased this year by $6,000.)

As I relayed to Hersey, since that time I sat through endless meetings where I would hear complaints about the direction of the bus service. Usually that was followed by some demand for an awareness campaign.

But that did little to fix the service, and the meetings became repetitive. It was clear there wasn’t much catalyst for change. Someone needed plan.

Pat Peckham pitched to the transit commission that they ought to hire a consultant to come up with that plan, and through some maneuvering, it eventually happened. In 2022, a consultant presented the transit plan to the city.

Though Hersey wasn’t aware of the plan, he’s carrying out much of its contents. Here’s what he has in mind.

Hersey’s plan

For years, ridership at Metro Ride has been decreasing. And it’s been a chicken or egg problem.

Metro Ride needs more riders to bring in more revenue, in order to add more services and better ride times, such as nights and weekends. But Metro Ride needs those expanded services to bring in more riders. In other words, which comes first?

Some would call that a catch-22.

Hersey is focusing on the latter. The first step is a series of technology upgrades.