Photo: Eric England

Months after service cuts to Nashville’s public transit system — which rebranded in 2018 as WeGo — riders on one of the city’s busiest routes say buses are becoming more crowded and less reliable. Artists at social-outreach nonprofit Poverty and the Arts (POVA), which is located along the No. 23 Dickerson Road route, say they’ve waited more than 40 minutes for a ride home, with buses skipping their stop because they’re too full or behind schedule.

Kateri, an artist at POVA, says the bus delays affect her membership in the nonprofit as well as other aspects of her life.

“You don’t have a social life because you can’t be out late,” she tells the Scene. “I could once in a while do Uber or Lyft, but it adds up. … I’m on Social Security.”

Angelique Johnson of Music City Riders United, a public transit advocacy group started by labor organization Workers’ Dignity, says she’s heard a lot of complaints from East Nashville riders, especially with the loss of the No. 20 Scott line. While route No. 23 wasn’t affected by WeGo’s route service changes earlier this year — which included the elimination of some routes and the consolidation of others — more riders appear to be flocking to the route, as well as the No. 56 Gallatin Pike bus, because of those changes.

In an email to the Scene, a WeGo spokesperson confirms the agency has spikes in ridership on the 23 and 56, which can cause overcrowding issues.

The delays also affect homeless bus riders. Nicole Minyard, the founder and executive director of POVA, says one artist sometimes has to leave the studio early to get to a shelter bed.

Kateri, who was in a wheelchair a few years ago, is also concerned about how route changes may have increased the walking distance for older and disabled commuters to reach their bus stops.

“I understand that they have to correlate the routes according to the ridership,” says Kateri. “But then what you’re doing is you’re leaving out ... a lot of people who need the bus but can’t access it because they have to walk so far.”

WeGo is collecting data from sources like farebox records, customer feedback and observations from drivers and supervisors “to determine the pinch points that are causing overcrowding.”

“We would love to invest more in increasing frequency, but budgetary constraints leave us instead with deploying extra vehicles, when available, to help accommodate the ridership demand,” says WeGo’s Amanda Clelland. “But this is merely a short-term fix for a situation that requires a longer-term solution.”

That solution would be more funding.

“We ultimately need to be able to invest in more service on our busiest corridors, as well as expand our coverage and span of service in general,” says Clelland. “Until we have a long-term, sustainable, dedicated funding source for transit, our system will always be subject to further service stop gap measures because we are competing for a piece of the same funding source alongside so many ... other critical community resources, like schools and first responders.”