ROANOKE, Va. – With gas prices climbing, more Roanoke Valley residents are turning to public transit — and Valley Metro says the numbers back it up.
Valley Metro General Manager Kevin Price says ridership is up 7% over the last 90 days, a trend he attributes directly to rising fuel costs.
“As gas prices continue to increase, Valley Metro will always be there and we encourage you to take advantage of that,” Price said. “As of today, our ridership is up 7 percent over the last 90 days.”
For more information about Valley Metro fares, routes offered, and how to ride the bus, you can read past coverage here.
What riders are experiencing
A first-hand look at the system revealed just how much planning a daily commute by bus can require. A single delay can turn a short trip into a much longer one — something riders experience regularly. Some routes run only once per hour, meaning a missed bus can mean a 60-minute wait for the next one.
That reality isn’t lost on transit advocates, who say the system’s potential is being held back by infrastructure gaps and coverage limits. Sharon Fritz, a board member for Bus Riders of Roanoke, pointed to one of the most visible examples — a lack of basic amenities at stops.
“The air conditioning on the bus is great, but when I was standing there, there’s no shelter and there’s no bench,” Fritz said.
Fritz and other advocates say the community needs to invest in making the system more accessible if it wants more riders to make the switch — and that means thinking beyond city limits.
“The economics of this area don’t stop at the city limits,” Fritz said. “We need the buses going to the county because people live and work there.”
Fritz added that improvements at stops would go a long way toward making the system more usable.
“We can help with accessibility by having curb cuts and sidewalks and shelters and bus signage you can read,” she said.
Calls for more frequent service
Dr. Monique Bishop, also a board member for Bus Riders of Roanoke, says the agency should prioritize busier corridors first.
“The routes that are heavily populated, having express service so having a bus that runs every 30 minutes instead of every hour,” Bishop said.
That call aligns with what Valley Metro’s own rider surveys found. According to the agency’s Transit Strategic Plan, 63% of riders said longer service hours would help them the most, while nearly half of the broader community — 46% — said they want more frequent service. Only 7% of riders surveyed said expanding to new geographic areas was their top priority.
Valley Metro’s 10-year plan
Valley Metro already has a roadmap for addressing many of those concerns. The agency’s Transit Strategic Plan, covering fiscal years 2025 through 2034, lays out a decade of phased improvements across service, infrastructure, and technology.
Price says stop upgrades are one of the most concrete near-term projects in the pipeline.
“We have a project that will replace all 800 stops, new signs with enhanced information,” he said.
Mobile ticketing is also on the horizon — a change Price says will remove a key barrier for riders who currently have to travel downtown to purchase tickets.
“Our most challenging project will be mobile ticketing, so you won’t need to come downtown to buy your ticket,” Price said.
Looking further out, Price acknowledged that finances and economics shape the timeline.
“We’re always looking at ways we can be more efficient with city routes so not in that order, but those are things we’re looking to do in the next 9 years,” Price said.
What the plan includes, and when
Valley Metro’s strategic plan breaks improvements into short-, mid-, and long-term phases. In the short term — within the next three years, pending funding — the agency plans to expand its MetroFLX on-demand service to include early morning hours. MetroFLX launched in late January 2024 and logged 900 reservations in its first full month of operation, with Sundays accounting for half of all trips.
In the mid-term, years four through seven, the plan calls for restoring 30-minute service frequency on the system’s highest-performing routes — an improvement that would cost roughly $1 million per year. A dedicated MetroFLX mobile app and a new farebox system are also planned for that phase.
Long-term goals include three new fixed routes: the Brandon Avenue Connector, Route 93 Salem and an Electric Road Corridor that would extend partially into Roanoke County. MetroFLX service to the Hollins, Peters Creek and Plantation Road area — also in Roanoke County — is part of that longer-range vision as well.
The agency’s annual operating budget is projected to grow from roughly $14.8 million in fiscal year 2025 to approximately $23 million per year by 2034 if all planned improvements are implemented.