The Knoxville Transportation Authority votes to approve proposed changes to Knoxville Area Transit service during a public meeting.

Starting August 29, KAT will reduce, cut and change routes due to “continuing and worsening workforce shortages”.

“This is a completely unprecedented situation,” says Isaac Thorne, Director of Transit for the City of Knoxville in the release. “We currently have 156 operators out of the 200 needed to operate our pre-COVID service levels. Our bus operators are working hard to try to provide this current level of service to the community, but we must step back for a while with our service levels while we continue to redouble our hiring, training, and retention efforts.”

The proposed service reductions:

Elimination of Routes 10 – Sequoyah and 19 – Lakeshore/Lonas
Reduction of all Sunday service schedules, with the last downtown departures at 5:15 p.m.
All weekday and Saturday evening service ends earlier, with the exception of core routes 11, 12, 22, 31 and 41 continuing through an 11:15 p.m. line-up.
Reduced hours on Route 13 – Beaumont
Reduced weekday frequency on Route 42 – UT/Ft. Sanders Hospitals, added one 10:30 p.m. trip for hospital staff at both hospitals
Reduced frequency on Orange and Green Line trolleys
In addition to these service reductions two route changes are proposed:

A new proposal to serve West Town Mall (outbound only) via Gleason Drive
A proposal for a route change on Route 12 – Western to use 5th Avenue to University (rather than Arthur and Boyd) through the Mechanicsville area.

The full details of these proposed changes can be found by going to https://katbus.com/