Oct 7, 2026 · 48 min · 13 segments
A reliable bus is a big improvement, but Mobile is also looking at how appearance, comfort and the experience around the trip can make transit more appealing to people who have other options. The idea…
So if we put a fresh skin on an older technology of a bus, uh, will it actually help people use the, our transit systems more effectively and get to where they need to go, which is obviously the primary purpose of our transit systems.
Um, they've introduced microtransit, and if the mayor gets his way, eventually a whole lot of their buses are going to look like old-fashioned trolleys.
And this rebuild is coming after some very real operational problems that they've been trying to address.
Before VIA took over the system in 2025, the city of Mobile, uh, by their number, says roughly 20% of the scheduled buses were not running as planned.
Within about 90 days under the new operator, according to the city's number, that number has fallen to nearly zero.
Uh, Mobile is also, uh, showing that if you change how your system is operating, uh, you can start to really improve reliability, uh, but also potentially attract more riders, uh, to your transit system.
Now, the mayor has another theory, though, uh, that appearance matters in this, that distinctive trolley-style buses might change how people perceive public transit and persuade people who have other choices, uh, to choose the choice of riding transit.
Why worry about what the bus looks like when people just need the bus to show up? But there's also a more interesting question here.
Once you get the bus to show up, what comes next? How does a city figure out what is really keeping people off of transit, and how does it know whether the next investment is actually going to solve that problem? So joining us today is a near neighbor of, uh, the Mobile community, uh, Levette Fuller, who is a Strong Towns board member and a former Shreveport, Alabama City Council member.
She's also a founding member of Reform Shreveport, an organization dedicated, uh, to bringing citizens together to share ideas and, uh, implement solutions to improve Shreveport's built environment.
So if we put a fresh skin on an older technology of a bus, uh, will it actually help people use the, our transit systems more effectively and get to where they need to go, which is obviously the primary purpose of our transit systems.
Um, they've introduced microtransit, and if the mayor gets his way, eventually a whole lot of their buses are going to look like old-fashioned trolleys.
And this rebuild is coming after some very real operational problems that they've been trying to address.
Before VIA took over the system in 2025, the city of Mobile, uh, by their number, says roughly 20% of the scheduled buses were not running as planned.
Within about 90 days under the new operator, according to the city's number, that number has fallen to nearly zero.
Uh, Mobile is also, uh, showing that if you change how your system is operating, uh, you can start to really improve reliability, uh, but also potentially attract more riders, uh, to your transit system.
Now, the mayor has another theory, though, uh, that appearance matters in this, that distinctive trolley-style buses might change how people perceive public transit and persuade people who have other choices, uh, to choose the choice of riding transit.
Why worry about what the bus looks like when people just need the bus to show up? But there's also a more interesting question here.
Once you get the bus to show up, what comes next? How does a city figure out what is really keeping people off of transit, and how does it know whether the next investment is actually going to solve that problem? So joining us today is a near neighbor of, uh, the Mobile community, uh, Levette Fuller, who is a Strong Towns board member and a former Shreveport, Alabama City Council member.
She's also a founding member of Reform Shreveport, an organization dedicated, uh, to bringing citizens together to share ideas and, uh, implement solutions to improve Shreveport's built environment.
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