Plan to cut taxi’s night hours subject of hearing

A public hearing will be held Thursday morning on cutting hours for the late-night Ozaukee County Shared Ride Taxi and reallocating those hours for mid-day and early morning when demand is higher.

The hearing before the Ozaukee County Public Works Committee is in regard to a proposal to end the taxi service at 10 p.m. Monday through Friday night, at 9 p.m. on Saturday and 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Monday-through-Friday night service currently ends at 11:30 p.m., while Saturday ends at 10 p.m. and Sunday at 6 p.m.

Under the new plan, Monday-through-Friday service will start at 5 a.m., as it does now, Saturday will start at 8 a.m. instead of at 8:30 and Sunday service will continue beginning at 8 a.m.

Members of the public can comment on the proposed changes at the hearing, which will be held at 8 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20, at the Ozaukee County Highway Department, 410 S. Spring St., in Port Washington.

The county Public Works Committee is scheduled to take action on the proposed changes immediately after the public hearing.

If approved, the new hours will take effect on Oct. 1.

Transportation to the public hearing is available for individuals who are elderly or have a disability by calling the Ozaukee County Shared-Ride Taxi at (262) 284-8294.

Reasons for the changes are “intended to better align service with current ridership patterns and improve service efficiency,” according to a memo to the committee from county Transit Supt. Kerise Zutz.

“The proposed service hour changes would reallocate nine weekly service hours to better match periods of higher demand,” Zutz wrote.

Adding more taxis to those higher-volume periods will reduce the number of denied trips, officials say.

“Recent increases in denied trip requests provide further evidence that demand is approaching or exceeding available service capacity during certain periods,” Public Works Director Jon Edgren told the committee in June.

At that time, Go Riteway, which has operated the Shared Ride Taxi since 2023, told the county that it would need to increase its hours to handle demand.

Its contract with the county calls for providing 58,800 annual billable service hours at a cost of about $2.17 million.

Go Riteway has estimated that it would need an additional 147 hours per week to meet current demand and avoid denying rides at the recent request levels, Edgren said.

Zutz told supervisors in June she would rather cut late-night hours and increase  the number of taxis operating during peak hours, such as in the early morning and at mid-day.

That would increase service hours by 100 hours per week, increasing the cost of the service by about $192,000 a year, she said in June.

About half the cost increase would be covered by the county out of its transit reserve fund, which currently totals $2.3 million. The other half would come from the state Department of Transportation and fare-box revenue, she said.

Zutz said an analysis showed that 40 unique riders used the service after 10 p.m., accounting for 1,089 trips, during a six-month period.

In June, an analysis of the taxi service found that nearly half the service’s rides are used to take people to and from work, far more than what officials thought.

The survey showed that 4,034 of 8,229 trips, or 49%, were used for employment purposes.

Officials have often said that 75% or more of riders were elderly or disabled, based on anecdotal evidence and driver reports.

The May survey showed that 1,188 rides, or 14%, were for medical purposes, with 1,121, or 13.6%, for personal business. The rest of the rides were split between social/recreational, education/training and nutrition categories.

The Shared Ride Taxi is less conducive for getting people to work than a commuter bus, such as the defunct Ozaukee Express, which provided rides on a strict schedule from park-and-ride lots as far north as Port Washington to downtown Milwaukee, officials have said.

The county shut commuter bus down in 2024 due to low ridership and high costs.

The Shared Ride Taxi has a 45-minute window to arrive at a rider’s house or other location to pick them up.

Overall ridership on the service was 8,374 in June, up from 8,229 in May, the highest ridership in June since 2018 and an 8.1% increase over the same month last year.

For the year, the service is averaging 442 more riders per month than in 2025.