The Alger County Transit Authority, or Altran, buses are shown. Altran has adapted to the pandemic in a number of ways, including barriers, masks and offering free rides to vaccine appointments. (Photo courtesy of Alger County Transit Authority.)

MUNISING — The past year has been filled with challenges for the Alger County Transit Authority, commonly known as Altran. However, the authority has worked to make rides easily accessible for Alger County residents during the pandemic.

Altran was closed for over a month and a half in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic began, and even once it was allowed to reopen again, there was a reduced schedule of rides that didn’t include runs to Marquette, Altran Executive Director Jennifer Heyrman said.

At that time, ridership was down 63%, but it’s picked up since then. With school back in session and fewer restrictions, ridership has been on the rise, Heyrman said.

Altran has made a number of adaptations to keep riders safe amid the pandemic. When the schedule was shortened, the focus shifted to the building. There was and still is a concerted effort to clean and sanitize the facility, Heyrman said.

As of Tuesday, there haven’t been any COVID-19 cases reported within the organization, and that vigilance has carried over to the buses.

There are plastic foam guards and masks available on the rides and drivers spray everything down between rides.

Altran is also a part of a “really wonderful program” that gives high-risk patients individual rides throughout Alger County, specifically medical appointments, Heyrman said.

“When we transport those people, of course it’s no charge,” she said. “We don’t want any interaction or exchange of funds, we don’t want to be messing with passes. So we pretty much did all of those free, and they were just very grateful that we were able to do that.”

Altran has been transporting residents to vaccine clinics at no charge and has also delivered groceries throughout the community, Heyrman said. Altran is grateful for the community support, and it’s a critical service for people in a geographically large county that may not have transportation, she added.

“When you do this kind of job, you normally like to help the public. My drivers take pride in what they do, they’re getting people where they need to go and if it wasn’t for public transportation to transfer those who’re limited, they’d be trapped in their home,” Heyrman said. “The community’s great, the drivers are great. They know that their job’s important, they take pride in their job, and if they can help members of the community, why not?”

For more information on Altran or scheduling rides, call 906-387-4845.

Travis Nelson can be reached at tranelso@nmu.edu.