Over the past few weeks, signs for bus stops have been popping up around downtown Bentonville, and the new service is now up and running.

The new downtown route includes about 20 stops, serving destinations that include Crystal Bridges, the Square, the library and the new Walmart Home Office campus. It runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and is free to ride.

Service began Monday, March 16. On the first day, there was one rider, according to Ozark Regional Transit executive director Joel Gardner. Since then, a trickle of riders has given it a go.

In the coming weeks, exact details may shift as the transit agency fine-tunes the route. Gardner said that could look like moving a stop up or down a block.

The time it takes for the bus to make a complete loop was expected to be 30 minutes, but that has already been adjusted to 40 minutes to account for busier than expected traffic.

When the downtown route concept was approved by City Council in January, Gardner told The Bentonville Bulletin it could be key to generating support for further expansion of public transit in Bentonville.

If someone rides the downtown bus route, he believes "they'll be able to turn around and say, 'Okay, this is worth using. This is worth investing in.'"

The city’s other bus routes saw skyrocketing ridership numbers last year, with monthly ridership nearly quadrupling from January to December.

Gardner acknowledges the route would likely be more popular on weekends, but he sees the new weekday service as a step forward in his agency's long-term vision for the area.

“I want to go ahead and get it established. Go ahead and work all the bugs out of it … and then turn around and say we need to actually provide transit to the citizens and the visitors on Saturdays — and preferably Saturdays and Sundays,” Gardner said in January.

On weekends, residents seeking public transit can try their luck with on-demand transit, a door-to-door Uber-like rideshare service that’s also run by Ozark Regional Transit and costs $1.25 per ride.

The on-demand transit service is rather unreliable, with many rides rejected due to a lack of capacity, and it’s not seen as a sustainable long-term public transit option. The funding for the new downtown bus route comes from ending weekday on-demand transit service, with city and transit staff favoring the predictability of fixed route buses.

In the future, Gardner said he could see bus service running more frequently and extending to west Bentonville, Centerton and Bella Vista. That would require additional funding amid a budget environment in which city services are already being pinched.

The city government will cover about 40% of the cost of bus service in Bentonville this year. Its contribution for 2026 is $705,327, about a 25% increase over last year. The remaining cost is split pretty much equally between the federal government and grants from the Walton Family Foundation.