About

About Glenn Transit Services

Glenn Transit Services (GTS) operates three transportation services in Glenn County:

• Glenn Ride (the bus that goes from Willows to Orland to Chico)
• Dial-a-Ride (door-to-door rides for seniors and individuals with disabilities in Orland and Willows)
• The Volunteer Medical Transportation program (trips to medical appointments in Glenn County, Chico, and the region).

What is a Short-Range Transit Plan?

A short-range transit plan is a required plan for public transit agencies in California. The plan maps out what a transit agency will do over the next 3-5 years. The last update for GTS was in 2014. The plan will include recommended service changes, how to fund transit services and how to promote transit services and engage with riders.

About Glenn County

• Older adults (65+) will grow in share of the population, from 17% to 19&, by 2045.
• 29% of households in Glenn County have at least one person with a disability.
• Glenn County's population is expected to shrink by about 8% by 2040, with declines felt in the share of population 17 and younger.

Glenn Ride Bus

In California, all public transit must earn enough in fares to cover at least 10% of the cost of running the service. Right now, Glenn Ride only earns 7%. Increasing fares is one of the only ways to try and make up the difference.

The Glenn Ride bus also allows for deviations, which is when the bus leaves the route to pick up or drop someone off who has called ahead. Right now, the schedule is too tight to be both on time and allow for deviations. Increasing the trip length is one of the only ways to ensure the bus is on time when a deviation is requested.

Glenn Ride Ridership Facts

• Glenn Ride bus offers 7 round trips from Willows to Chico, via Orland, on weekdays and 3 round trips on Saturdays.
• Glenn Ride bus's ridership has declined 26% since 2019.
• It costs 45% more to offer service to Willows than Orland, due to longer distance and fewer riders ($19 per trip to or from Willows on average versus $13 per trip to or from Orland on average).

Dial-a-Ride

In California, all public transit must earn enough in fares to cover at least 10% of the cost of running the service. Right now, Dial-a-Ride only earns 3%. Increasing fares is one of the only ways to try and make up the difference.

Another way to make up the difference is to lower costs by reducing the hours of service. Right now, Dial-a-Ride is offered in both Orland and Willows from 10am to 4pm Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reducing the days to just twice a week in Willows, and once a week in Orland, is one way to try and reduce costs.

Dial-a-Ride Ridership Facts

• Dial-a-Ride is a door-to-door service offered on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the cities of Willows and Orland.
• Dial-a-Ride ridership has declined 71% since 2019, with an 89% decrease in Orland.
• It costs 235% more to offer service in Orland than Willows, due to fewer riders ($180 per trip in Orland on average versus $54 per trip in Willows on average)

Scenario 1

About Scenario 1: Update existing services

Scenario 1 keeps Glenn Ride bus and Dial-a-Ride services but changes how they operate to better match where folks use the services and where folks need to go.

Why this set of changes?

These changes aim to improve the experience of riding Glenn Ride bus and focus Dial-a-Ride where it makes the most sense. Glenn Ride bus has run a similar route for many years and can benefit from an update that considers where businesses and homes are now located. Dial-a-Ride has lost most of its riders in the past 5 years and needs to refocus on servicing Willows, where there are many more rides needed than in Orland.

Glenn Ride Bus

Under this scenario, Glenn Ride bus would mostly stay the same.

There would continue to be Monday through Saturday round-trip service between Willows, Orland and Chico, but with a new schedule to make sure the stop times are more accurate to when the bus arrives.

The biggest changes would be with stops, with underused or less safe stops removed and new stops added in higher-demand areas

• Glenn Transit Services will focus on improving stops, including signs, trash cans, benches, shelters, and wheelchair access ramps.
• Glenn Ride's schedule will be adjusted to better connect with other services, including Tehama County's TRAX, Butte County's (Chico's) B-Line, Butte College, and RABA's (Redding's) new 5x route that will stop at Orland and serve Redding, Red Bluff, and Sacramento.
• 42% of all stops on Glenn Ride had less than one person use them per day in 2024.

Dial-a-Ride

Under this scenario, Dial-a-Ride would change where it operates to better serve riders where it is most needed.

There would be no Dial-a-Ride service in Orland and service would be expanded in Willows where ridership is highest.

Riders in Orland can still request door-to-door service using Glenn Ride's 3/4 mile deviation service on any of the regularly scheduled trips in Orland.

Riders can also use the volunteer medical transportation service to get rides to medical appointments anywhere in the region, including Chico, Corning, and Sacramento.

• Glenn Transit Services will focus on acquiring smaller vehicles for use in Dial-a-Ride, like wheelchair-accessible minivans.
• In Orland, nearly all of the area currently covered by the Dial-a-Ride boundary is also covered by the Glenn Ride bus's deviation zone. Riders can call ahead to get a pick up or drop off anywhere in this area during normal Glenn Ride bus trips.

Scenario 2

About Scenario 2: Brand new services

Scenario 2 makes big changes to both Glenn Ride bus and Dial-a-Ride.

While Glenn Ride bus will still connect cities in Glenn County and Chico, it will have a different number of trips and only stop at a handful of locations. Dial-a-Ride will still be door-to-door but be expanded to cover the entire county, not just the cities of Orland and Willows.

Why this set of changes?

This set of changes look to rethink how folks get around Glenn County and connect to Chico.

The focus is to use Glenn Ride as an intercity connector with enough trips to make it possible for more people to use it to get to and from work, school, and appointments in Glenn County and Chico. With a new Dial-a-Ride service that covers the entire county, more residents will have access to door-to-door services and be able to connect to Glenn Ride intercity services from anywhere, not just Orland and Willows.

Glenn Ride Bus

Under this scenario, Glenn Ride would become a frequent, limited stop service primarily connecting Orland and Chico.

Glenn Ride would no longer provide any deviations and would only serve designated stops in Willows, Orland, Hamilton City, and Chico.

Willows would still see service at the start and end of the school day to connect students to schools in Orland and Chico

• Glenn Transit Services will focus on improving stops, including signs, trash cans, benches, shelters, and wheelchair access ramps.
• Glenn Ride's schedule will be adjusted to better connect with other services, including Tehama County's TRAX, Butte County's (Chico's) B-Line, Butte College, and RABA's (Redding's) new 5x route that will stop at Orland and serve Redding, Red Bluff, and Sacramento.

Example Stops and Service on Glenn Ride

Willows and Orland would each have 3-4 stops, Hamilton City would have one stop, and Chico would only serve the downtown transit center and North Valley Plaza.

• Potential Willows stops could include Downtown, Willows High School, and Wal-Mart
• Potential Orland stops could include Butte College Orland, a new "hub" near CVS, and the Glenn Center

Under this schedule, there could be hourly service between Orland and Chico, twice as much as is currently available.

Dial-a-Ride

Under this scenario, Dial-a-Ride would be offered throughout the county, including in areas without any service at this time. Glenn County would be divided up into 4-5 "zones." Riders can connect to any two locations within the same zone, between any two zones, or to connect with Glenn Ride.

Each zone would see at least once-a-week service, with higher need zones seeing service multiple times a week.

Riders can also use the Volunteer Medical Transportation service to get rides to medical appointments anywhere in the region, including Chico, Corning and Sacramento.

Fares would be similar to what is currently charged for Dial-a-Ride ($3-$5 one way).

Example Zones

Here is a sample of what it could look like with four zones:

• West County, covering most of Glenn County west of I-5, past the city limits of Orland and Willows.
• Orland/Hamilton City, covering areas around Highway 32 to the county lines.
• East County, covering areas east of I-5, past the city limits of Willows, and including the communities of Artois and Glenn.
• Willows, covering the area currently served by Willows Dial-a-Ride

Additional Improvements

About Additional Improvements

These ideas may be useful in either Scenario 1 or Scenario 2 to enhance or fill a gap in service. Understanding which of these service improvements are most popular helps us to ensure that the final recommendations for GTS meet as many people's needs as possible.

Options

Weekly Shopper

A weekly 'shopper' bus is a reservation-only service that runs like a Dial-a-Ride to pick up riders in a city (like Willows), the drives directly to Chico where riders can go to a predefined list of stops (like Target or North Valley Plaza). Riders can go to more than one location and coordinate with the driver for their pickup. The bus then returns everyone to their home.

Out-of-County Dial-a-Ride

This Dial-a-Ride service would connect the general public to any location in Chico, with priority given to medical appointments, older adults, individuals with disabilities, and veterans. Fares would be much higher than in-county Dial-a-Ride ($20 or more, one way).

More Weekend Service

Glenn Ride currently runs 3 times a day on Saturday and does not run on Sundays. Dial-a-Ride does not run on the weekend. More weekend service would include additional service on Saturday, as well as service on Sundays. Service may be reduced on weekdays to allow for more service on the weekend.

Service to Colusa County

There are currently no public transit connections to Colusa County from Glenn County. A new service to connect riders with Colusa County Public Transit would see 1-2 round trips per week, likely connecting with Colusa County Public Transit at either Maxwell or Williams. This service would not serve locations in Colusa County but would instead connect riders to transit in Colusa County.

Orland Transit Hub

Orland currently has limited facilities to support transfers between GTS services, Tehama County's TRAX, and a new service run by RABA stopping at Redding, Red Bluff, Orland and Sacramento. A new transit center in Orland would provide riders greater comfort waiting to transfer between transit providers by having dedicated benches, shelters, information, and even restrooms.