Suffolk County Sunday Bus Ridership Rising

East End residents have a litany of transportation services at their disposal, with Free Ride, Hampton Hopper, the Hampton Jitney and an endless list of taxi companies. However, the expansion of Suffolk County public busing to Sundays has seen immense increases in ridership as well.

In its first six months, Sunday bus ridership has steadily increased throughout Suffolk County. Since January, ridership of the new public transportation services nearly tripled, with all routes peaking in ridership in either May or June.

Schneiderman proposed the expansion of bus routes to include Sunday service last year with roughly $2 million in state and federal funding for Suffolk Transit. The Sunday service launched January 5 of this year and now includes 10 routes throughout the county.

“Public transportation provides people with the ability to access employment, medical care and other community resources across the county,” Schneiderman said. “I’m pleased to see the number of residents taking advantage of this service.”

Thousands of county residents have utilized Sunday buses with 78,892 tickets sold from January through the end of June. All routes peaked in either May or June, as to be expected with the influx of summer visitors and residents alike.

The most popular route, by far, is the S92 route connecting Orient Point and East Hampton, featuring stops in numerous Hamptons villages along the way. Stops include Sag Harbor, Water Mill, Southampton Village, Hampton Bays, Flanders and Riverhead. In six months, this route had a total of 16,832 users.

Physically disabled residents who take advantage of individual public transportation with Suffolk County Accessible Transit also received Sunday services. At its peak ridership, SCAT had around 125 passengers per Sunday.

In the coming months, Schneiderman and Suffolk County government will be looking to expand Sunday services even more to new routes throughout the region.