CHQ Transit made about 170,000 trips in 2024, which is below the nearly 196,000 trips made in 2019. P-J File Photo by Gregory Bacon

Ridership on Chautauqua County’s public transportation is still down since the COVID-19 pandemic but it is increasing.

According to Michele Westphal, the senior project coordinator for CHQ Transit, in 2019 there were 195,933 trips. At that time the transportation system was called Chautauqua Area Transit System, otherwise known as CARTS. It was rebranded in 2022.

In 2020, ridership plummeted from nearly 196,000 trips to 123,189.

Since COVID-19, ridership has slowly increased, but still not to pre-pandemic levels.

In 2021, there were 130,386 trips. In 2022 there were 137,735 trips. In 2023 there were 168,236 trips and in 2024 there were 170,277 trips.

During a presentation to the county legislature’s Public Facilities Committee meeting, Westphal noted that even though ridership went up in 2024, there were some specific challenges that caused their numbers to drop.

– In September, Jamestown Public School stopped purchasing tickets for JPS students to utilize public transportation. This was a loss of approximately 1,700 trips. Westphal said she believes the change was due to grant funds no longer being available.

– A Dunkirk City Fixed Route did not run every day due to lack of drivers. The other city bus was out there running. Westphal said this was a potential loss of ridership of 1,900 rides.

– Medical Answering Services, the broker for non-emergency medicaid transportation, took over scheduling all long-term Medicaid managed care transportation. Westphal said because of this they were not given all of the trips that they had originally done which resulted in a loss of 1,100 trips.

Westphal said that she believes these specific issues caused a total loss of ridership in 2024 of 6,741 trips.

Over the last decade, the highest year of ridership was in 2016, when there were 200,694 trips.

In 2015 there were 1643,646 trips. All the other years from 2014-2019 were between 190,000 to 200,000 trips.

From June to December 2024, Westphal said CHQ Transit had been advertising on Spectrum, which she believed helped them get the word out about their service.

CHQ Transit has also seen an increase in trolley rental this year.

“So far this year we have a confirmed $7,650 in revenue, with potential for another $13,900 once the trolley contracts are signed. We are getting phone calls almost everyday about renting the trolleys. Last year I projected $10,000 for 2023 for charters and we finished the year with $22,439.93,” she said.

So far in 2025, Westphal said their ridership is slightly lower than 2024, but she believes that is due to the bad winter, when fewer people were interested in going out.