Jackson’s public transit system will begin implementing a new fixed route schedule on March 4, Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba announced at a media briefing on Jan. 22.
“All JTRAN routes will have a new name, number and schedule. In many cases, routing and bus stop locations will change,” the mayor said. He said the changes came after “much dialogue and discussion with (Jackson) residents talking about the balance between what they need in order to get to and from the places they need to go and what the cost of providing that service is to the City of Jackson’s Planning and Development Department.”
He said JTRAN staff will be available on the buses in the coming weeks to provide riders with additional information on the upcoming changes. “We don’t want anyone who depends on the bus every day to go out on March 4 and find themselves surprised, shocked and in many regards, challenged by the circumstances.”
Lumumba said the city has installed more than 640 new bus-stop signs throughout the JTRAN route network and encouraged riders to use the JTRAN GPS-monitored mobile app to keep track of the new schedules.
The City of Jackson first began making upgrades to the JTRAN system in 2021, the first time in more than 30 years that the City had updated its public transit routes.
These changes are set to begin months after Lumumba first shared his intention to develop Jackson into a multi-modal city on Sept. 25, 2023. “However you travel around the city, we want to improve the infrastructure of what that looks like,” he said on Monday.
A 2015 Harvard University study found that commute time is the biggest factor in whether or not a person can escape poverty. Mayor Lumumba echoed similar findings during Monday’s press briefing.
“It is important that as a city we continue to invest in our public transit,” he said on Sept. 23, 2023. “The greatest statistical connection between generational poverty, more so than education, more so than a number of other factors, is actually commute time—the ability to get from point A to point B, the ability for people to get to the places they need and want to go.”
“These are steps in the right direction,” he added. “We want to make sure that we not only build it for our current ridership but as we build and move into the future, we have an efficient system that people to come will be able to take advantage of.”
Visit the JTRAN site or call 601-952-1000 for more information about the changes.
