HOLLAND — As leadership for Macatawa Area Express (MAX) Transit explores service improvements, it again turned to the public during an open house and focus groups on Tuesday, Oct. 24.
The event, held at Evergreen Commons, was organized by MAX Transit Authority and consultants from Transpo Group, giving members of the community and local leaders the opportunity to share ideas on how to improve the system.
More: MAX seeks public feedback on potential service improvements
MAX is an urban transit system that's served the community since 2000. It's expanded over the past two decades from three routes to 11 fixed routes, and has been governed by an independent authority board since July 2007.
The open house comes after a community survey, which received responses from 290 community members, including frequent and infrequent riders (55 percent) and non-riders (45 percent). A separate survey received responses from 79 area businesses, agencies, nonprofits and faith organizations.
“We want to know how we can better serve our community, our businesses, and our nonprofit and social service partners,” said Elisa Hoekwater, executive director for MAX. “And we want to gather some great ideas on how MAX could look differently now and in the future.”
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The results showed members of the community have an interest in weekend services and longer service hours, along with a desire for more frequent buses. Results also indicated an appreciation for the service reliability and overall affordability of the system.
The organization will now consider changes based on those recommendations.
Members of the community can continue to give input between now and Nov. 10 at transitstudy.mysocialpinpoint.com/online-open-house-1.
— Contact reporter Austin Metz at ametz@hollandsentinel.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: MAX riders want to see weekend service, more frequent buses