All it takes is one positive case of coronavirus to shut down the entire High Point Transit System, and that’s what happened again right before Halloween this year.
The City of High Point has been more careful than most local governments when it comes to reacting to virus incidences, and that proved to be the case again on Friday, Oct. 30, when the city announced that, effective immediately, all High Point Transit operations would be shut down until further notice.
In this case, as in similar shutdowns of the city’s transit system this year, it was a result of one system employee testing positive for COVID-19.
City officials stated that “Due to the potential exposure amongst other transit employees, no routes will run until a modified schedule can be put into effect.”
Officials stated at that time that the city was working out details of a modified transit schedule based on available staffing.
Also, all vehicles were thoroughly sanitized as is called for in pandemic health guidelines.
“The High Point Transit System continually followed federal, state and local sanitation guidelines,” the city’s press release noted.
The system was back up and running again on Halloween Day, when it High Point ran from 8:45 a.m. until 5:15 p.m., with modified routes.
The Oak Hollow Mall and English Road routes didn’t run on Halloween.
There have been shutdowns in the service during the pandemic as well as schedule changes so users of the system may want to check ahead before using the service. Information about the High Point Transit System and its revised schedule can be found at www.highpointnc.gov/transit.
Yost, the routes are running Saturday schedules, which means routes have been shortened, or in case of gtcc’s route through Jamestown cancelled.
I don’t know why they need to shorten routes when they cut back from half-hourly service to hourly service, but High Point being High Point probably has something to do with it.