The newly named general manager of Lexington’s mass transit system says refurbishing of the downtown transit center is a priority in 2024. Fred Combs, who’s been with Lextran for seven years, will officially take over the leadership post January eighth. Combs said the renovation of the center interior should start this spring.
“So, our customer interactions that are currently done on the platform where you might have a bus rumbling behind you and it’s kind of loud and hard to interact with our customer service team. That would now be conducted inside so it’s much easier and better transaction that a customer and customer service staff would have,” said Combs.
Combs noted a second piece of the project is to upgrade the exterior of the active transit center. The Lextran official added there are no plans to increase rider fees for fixed routes in the coming year.
Combs said a comprehensive operations analysis for the mass transit system has been completed.
“That looks at our routes and resources and tries to better align those with the needs of the City. So, there’s some ideas that are found in there that we would like to look into. As far as timing as when we would implement some of those ideas it’s still a little bit up in the air. Want to maybe focus on the transit center a little bit first,” said Combs.
Combs said the Lextran Board passed a resolution this week authorizing the purchase of three additional compressed natural gas and four electric buses. Combs anticipates the number of diesel buses, at 24 currently, to continue to decline in the years ahead.
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