Park and ride opens in Belfair

Six facilities are seeing consistent use

Matt Baide | Nov 24, 20220

After nearly a decade of planning, the Belfair Park & Ride opening was commemorated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony late last month.

“It was great to have them there to thank them for their hard work over the last eight to 10 years that this project has been going on,” Mason Transit Authority General Manager Amy Asher told the Journal. “There’s a lot of folks that were there, including our previous general manager and it was good to have everyone there that has been working on it for a long time be able to celebrate it.”

The building has been operational since August and Asher said the park and ride has been used consistently by travelers looking to take the bus.

“We’re seeing about 25 people a day park at that facility and then hop on a Mason Transit bus to head out to Kitsap County and so it is being used and we’re happy to see folks making use of it,” Asher said. “Our operators are using the breakroom facility, they love having a permanent home. They were for a while working out of a temporary trailer, so it’s nice for them to have a breakroom and a lunch room to rest in between routes.”

Belfair was the last Park & Ride to open of six locations in a long-term project for MTA. Asher said the use of the park and ride are getting close to pre-COVID levels.

“It’s nice to have that as an amenity throughout Mason County for people who are traveling and commuting, whether it’s down to Olympia and folks using our Cole Road Park & Ride and the Shelton-Matlock Park & Ride,” Asher said. “Folks that are heading to Bremerton are typically using the Pickering and Belfair park & rides so it’s nice to provide that option and have that connection to transit before getting on the bus and using that to get to work and that’s worked out great.”

Asher said MTA is still trying to attract more drivers and has a class starting Dec. 2 to get more drivers trained.

“We’ll take a look at our roster once the end of the year hits and see when we will start our next class, but I anticipate we will do another recruitment, probably in January so that we can prepare for that next class,” Asher said. “Folks are still retiring so it feels like we’re perpetually hiring. We’ve been able to add service with each new class that has come on board so as new drivers are being hired, we are putting more service out on the road which has been great. Our last service change was done Oct. 10 and we have seen an increase in ridership as a result of that change so putting more service out there is allowing people to make more connections a lot easier and get around our county.”

Ridership on MTA has increased this year, according to Asher. She said MTA is back at pre-pandemic levels for the Dial-a-Ride service and is starting to see an increase in the use of fixed routes.

MTA recently announced fare-free rides for anyone under 18. Asher said they didn’t track youth ridership prior to September, but according to their numbers over the October, youth ridership has increased 50% from September. This includes ridership on in-county and out-of-county ridership.

For more information on routes and buses, go to http://www.masontransit.org.