Photo by Emma Delk OVRTA's bus route from the Intermodal Center to WVU Medicine Reynolds Memorial and the Moundsville DMV is now permanent after a successful six-month trial run.

What began as a six-month trial run for the Ohio Valley Regional Transit Authority and East Ohio Regional Transit Authority into Marshall County is now a new permanent route.

Buses will continue departing from the Robert C. Byrd Intermodal Transportation Center in Wheeling and stopping at WVU Medicine Reynolds Memorial Hospital in Glen Dale and the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Moundsville. The new route will run on Tuesday and Thursday at $1.30 per trip.

The trial run began Jan. 3 and was scheduled to continue until July 3, with the OVRTA anticipating a 70% usage rate for the bus route, according to Lisa Weishar, OVRTA and EORTA’s executive director. On Thursday, it was announced that the route will become permanent before the trial period’s end as expectations were exceeded at an 88% usage rate.

“We are really looking forward to that being a permanent route,” said Moundsville Mayor Sara Wood-Shaw. “I think one of the biggest challenges West Virginians face is transportation issues. We don’t live in very walkable communities so I think this is a great step in the right direction for our communities.”

Due to the success of the Moundsville route, Lisa Weishar said that the OVRTA is “in talks” with Moundsville City Council to have the area serviced with more stops within the next year.

Regarding additional OVRTA services in Moundsville, Wood-Shaw explained that they are in an “information-gathering mode” and that they will meet with Weishar at their next policy meeting to discuss options.

“We will ask her questions about what different routes would look like and what the cost would be to citizens,” added Wood-Shaw. “We want to understand all that information as a council before making any final decisions, but we are interested in learning more.”

While the test bus route was a successful experiment, the Employment Opportunities Ride to the Highlands and Ohio Valley Mall will end on July 3. This early morning and late evening van service ran for those who needed to get to their jobs or job interviews.

“We had low usage of that, so we are ending that service,” explained Weishar.

The Employment Opportunities Ride and the Moundsville bus route arose after a public hearing in November 2022 where many riders expressed the need for the OVRTA and EORTA to expand their services. While no public meetings are currently scheduled to hear rider input on bus routes, Weishar shared that more meetings could happen in the “near future,” along with the possibility of adding early and later bus routes for other destinations in the area.

Complete bus schedules and maps can be found at www.ovrta.org