McAfee Knob offers mountain views and has become the most photographed spot on the Appalachian Trail.
It's so popular, in fact, that Roanoke County began offering a shuttle service to the trailhead in 2022. Ridership spiked to nearly 6,000 riders in 2024 when the parking lot was closed for construction of a pedestrian bridge, then fell to just under 2,000 last year.
Now, a state grant to support the shuttle has run out, and Roanoke County is considering how to continue funding the service. Maintaing the service at its current level would cost roughly $165,000, but county staff says that with some tweaks to the service, that cost can be reduced to about $78,000.
Those adjustments including ending service on Fridays and holiday Mondays, when the shuttle service sees relatively fewer reservations.
"Also changing the time span of how many hours the service runs per day," says Megan Cronise, assistant director of planning for Roanoke County. "We'd want to do a consistent 10 hours a day, so kind of compressing that window to provide some efficiencies in the schedule."
The Roanoke County board of supervisors appears to support continued funding for the shuttle, as well as the recommended changes to service.
Cronise says the administration will work to make the shuttle service part of its proposed budget for fiscal 2027.
