Connect Seguin looking to connect people to their destinations even more

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today
Darren Dunn

(Seguin) — The Connect Seguin public transportation program continues to serve the people of Seguin. The low cost, fixed-route bus service is a partnership between the city of Seguin and the Alamo Area Council of Governments (AACOG).

Assistant City Manager Rick Cortes spoke about the program during Tuesday night’s meeting of the Seguin City Council. Cortes says Connect Seguin continues to provide an important community service.

“It’s hard to believe that we are in our 10th year of Connect Seguin which is really amazing. It was a student initiated project at TLU and city council so it’s been great. We started with 3,000 participants initially, riders and we are up to 21,000 this year so it’s a great program that has worked very well and we have an opportunity to expand the program. We have been made aware from AACOG that there is funding available — I think about $12 million and we are looking at expanding the program. We want to help our manufacturing area also and I think we are looking at expanding our hours from I believe it’s from 7 o’clock  to 5 o’clock currently to 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and that would accommodate some of the shift work also,” said Cortes.

Cortes says in addition to the regular Connect Seguin bus service, they are also looking providing some additional transportation services. This would be more like an on-demand ride sharing service.

“And then we have another new program also. It’s called a Micro Transit. It’s very similar to Uber. It will be run through AACOG. So, we are looking at initiating that program. I am looking at the hours and how it would operate. We are thinking maybe even Thursday through Saturday, maybe Thursday through Sunday,” said Cortes.

Again, the new service would be a real time service, that will be offered for what Cortes called a relatively small fee. The council approved the concept and agreed to allow Seguin City Manager Steve Parker to send a letter to AACOG showing the city’s support for the new service.

Cortes says AACOG is also exploring the idea of replacing the Connect Seguin buses, with a trolley. He says the trolley-style bus would be a more unique looking public transportation service for Seguin, and perhaps draw more attention to the program.  The new trolley-style buses would not require any additional funding for the Connect Seguin program.

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