Afton Express continues to see ridership increase

In addition to Charlottesville Area Transit and Jaunt, Charlottesville and Albemarle are also served by a bus route operated by the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission. The Afton Express between Staunton and Charlottesville has been running for over five years.

“The Afton Express is a commuter bus service that connects the Valley to Charlottesville and Albemarle,” said Danielle Gannon, a transit planner with the CSPDC. “There are 10 total trips, starts in the morning, and then later in the afternoon and evening. We have three stops in the valley at the park and ride lots in Staunton and Waynesboro, then one in between at Fishersville at an Augusta Health location.”

Gannon said the service is partially funded by the University of Virginia’s Parking and Transportation Department as a way of providing an alternative to UVA employees who live in the Shenandoah Valley. Many of the localities also make a small contribution each year.

With five years of ridership data, the CSPDC hired a firm to review the schedule to try to find efficiencies and improve service.

“We also work very closely with UVA to figure out gaps in service on their end, and to really see if what we thought on our end through surveys, drivers’ data matched what UVA knew about their shift times and their population,” Gannon said.

One of the changes resulted in an Afton Express bus arriving at 8 a.m. at the beginning of the UVA Health shift, fulfilling one of the most frequent requests from rider surveys. When coupled with a marketing campaign funded by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, the route revision has proved to be successful.

“If we look at FY25 compared to FY26, we saw a 21 percent increase in ridership, and we did see larger gains coming in at the second half of the fiscal year,” Gannon said.

Gannon also said some of the increase could also be a result of higher gas prices.

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