the Oasis

Rock Hill’s MyRide bus service is about to end. Public comment ends May 11. It will do no good to say something about it. Say something anyway.

By Scott Morgan, Managing Editor
May 10, 2026

Monday, May 11, 2026, is the last day the public gets to weigh in on the fate of the MyRide bus in Rock Hill.

Should you voice your opinion to the city? Yes.

Will it change anyone’s mind at the city? No. 

While city officials keep publicly saying that nothing is set in stone, there is zero chance they can or will salvage the bus at this point. But your voice is your voice, and its yours to use or lose.

The city began a 30-day public comment period last month, with little advanced notice and not-so-convenient times for the people who ride MyRide to get in front of officials and voice their concerns.

Rock Hill didn’t invent the tactic of holding public meetings that are hard for people to attend and it’s certainly not the only governing body to use the tactic to follow the rules with as little chance of blowback as they can get, but it happens a lot in this town, and it happened here.

For the most part, the only people who’ve spoken at the two public hearings prior to Monday’s were social service providers and nonprofit organizations who serve the very people who have come to rely on the bus. Riders who rely on public transit, it seems, have a harder time organizing for public comment sessions at City Hall.

The MyRide bus will end service on May 22 and be replaced by an expanded York County Access (YCA) service, an on-demand system that will require riders to set up and schedule their own rides, for $2.50 per ride. 

YCA is being tasked with a lot. It’s expected to pick up 2,500 rides a week (MyRide provides 4,000 rides per week), and it’s expected to pick up this ball as the city drops it. The staff at YCA are not the bad guy, but they are going to be seen as such if the agency can’t provide the kind of service people want from mass transit.

But that’s not going to be the city’s problem once a city-run public transit system no longer exists.

Had the city given more time for public input, rather than the required-only 30 days to hear people out, it might have found a way to phase in service, rather than leave it on the ground for YCA to take on.

I can’t help but think of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, how suddenly and callously we left the country. No, it is not going to be as dramatic or violent to end a local bus service, but the parallels of intention are unmistakable. No one was going to change the Biden administration’s mind, no matter how much time was given to try to draw down in Afghanistan.

And no one is going to change the city’s not-officially-made-up-yet-but-completely-made- up-already mind about stopping the bus service. Even though there were long warning signs that each venture wouldn’t work, the sharpness with which a government’s disengagement occurred is the same in Rock Hill as it was in Afghanistan. 

The wake will be people who don’t know how to adjust to the new normal. It will be people who have come to rely on the city bus system. It will be … well, people.

Yes, the city couldn’t foresee that the company they had bought their buses from would collapse and take the ability to maintain and repair proprietary technology down the drain with it. And yes, the city is still going to invest in public transit by funding YCA in order to help keep rider fares lower.

But the city owes its residents better than a ham-fisted, law-mandated, 30-day-only, ceremonial pair of inconvenient hearing sessions about something that’s already decided. 

I asked Mayor John Gettys why not have a few months for hearings from the public. His answer was a question – would more time to talk about it change anyone’s mind?

I don’t know, Mr. Mayor. Because no one asked.

So no, dear reader, you won’t really get through. You won’t save MyRide. And you won’t have the chance to speak in public about it because at this point, publicly held listening sessions are over.

But you do have until the end of the day Monday to tell the City of Rock Hill how it’s going to affect you to lose the bus service, in writing. 

It’s your voice. So it’s yours to use or lose.
Information is available HERE.

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