The City of Minot is expanding its bus system by adding two new routes.
Brian Horinka, transit superintendent, said work is continuing on finalizing the new routes.
“We have the routes pretty much designed, but we need to do a little more research to make sure the timing works with the current routes,” Horinka said.
The new southwest route will go to the new Trinity hospital, The Tracks housing development, and east on 37th Avenue to Wal-Mart, among other locations.
“This route gets us to the hospital, provides twice as much service to Wal-Mart, service to the west section of 20th Avenue near CVS and the Social Security office, and then on 16th Street SW so riders can easily get to Hobby Lobby, Kohls, and other businesses in that area,” Horinka said. “This route adds some good value to riders and provides a better service to that area of town.”
The new north route will go north on Broadway near Job Service and up to 36th Avenue, an area that current routes don’t service. The route will also hit the high-density apartment area north of the airport, and go west past Erik Ramstad Middle School.
“That will be a very productive route hitting areas that we haven’t been in before,” Horinka said. “Now, we’ll have bus service on Broadway from 37th Avenue South all the way to 36th Avenue North, and that’s a good thing. I’m estimating conservatively that we’ll add between 8,000 and 10,000 new rides with these two routes.”
Horinka said he hopes to start the new routes between June 1 and Aug. 1, but that will depend on how soon two additional bus drivers can be hired.
“We can’t make the new routes work without two new drivers, so a lot of this hinges on the ability to hire those drivers. We’re taking applications until the end of March, and then we’ll see where we’re at with applicants,” Horinka said.
Applicants don’t need to have a commercial driver’s license to apply, but must have the ability to obtain a CDL with passenger and air brake endorsements. The City will provide the appropriate training, Horinka said.
Find out more about this job and others with the City of Minot at https://www.minotnd.gov/Jobs.aspx.
“We don’t want to make major route changes during the school year,” Horinka added. “If we can’t get drivers hired and trained in time to start the routes by Aug. 1, we’ll likely have to wait until 2024.”