Article published November 06, 2009
TARTA backs off Sunday, holiday cuts
Leaders mull bigger daily cuts instead after meetings
Many of the approximately 100 people at meetings on TARTA cuts said that fewer buses running the routes every day would be preferable to cutting all service on holidays and early Sunday mornings, according to TARTA leaders. Plans to end bus service earlier in the evening also were protested at the meetings, leaders reported. Gee
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THE BLADE
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By DAVID PATCH
BLADE STAFF WRITER
At the urging of riders who turned out for public meetings, the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority is backing away from a plan to eliminate all service on holidays and early Sunday mornings to balance its budget, but with deeper weekday cuts as a likely trade-off.
Among about 100 people who turned out for two public-comment meetings Oct. 22, the most common complaint was that eliminating Sunday-morning and holiday service would leave riders without a way to work or, in the case of Sunday morning, church, James Gee, the authority's general manager, told TARTA trustees yesterday.
Eliminating all buses on New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas would be particularly hard on disabled riders "who would be unable to have holidays with their families if they have no transportation," Mr. Gee said.
Meeting attendees also protested plans to cut back evening service, with the last buses leaving downtown Toledo at 10:10 p.m. instead of 10:50 p.m., on the grounds that people leaving second-shift jobs would miss the last bus home and third-shift workers would also be negatively affected.
Riders expressed a willingness to wait out longer intervals between buses at other times of day, Mr. Gee told the transit board.
"The frequency of service itself is not nearly as important as having access to service," he said.So agency staff now are reworking their plan for service changes, still tentatively planned to take effect Dec. 27, to provide for limited Sunday morning and holiday service. A draft of the revisions is likely to be discussed during a routes and schedules committee meeting Nov. 18, Mr. Gee said.
"We're going after the frequency of service during the week, so we can take some of those hours for Sunday and holiday service," the transit manager said.
Shirley Smith, a local transit activist, said she was "very dissatisfied" with proposals to cut weekend and holiday service and questioned Mr. Gee's failure to mention the possibility of a fare hike, which he had said last month also might be in the offing as the transit authority strives to offset a projected $900,000 decline in revenue from its property levies because of falling real-estate values.
"You are robbing the poor for the rich," Miss Smith asserted.
Mr. Gee said he didn't discuss fares with the transit board because no formal proposal has been developed yet. Any fare increase, he said, would be preceded by a formal hearing at which fares would be the only subject.
Mary Destatte, a wheelchair user and former TARTA trustee, urged the authority to avoid a fare increase. As a regular Toledo Area Regional Paratransit Service rider, she said the current $2 fare for that service is onerous enough.
"I have a very low income, and with TARPS costing me $4 to go out and then come back home, there's times when I can't go anywhere because I just don't have any money to do it," she said.
Mr. Gee said the local transit authority's financial straits are not unique.
"We're cutting service, but everybody across the state is cutting service," he said.
Ohio's state support for public transportation is among the lowest in the region. During the Oct. 22 meetings, TARTA officials offered copies of a letter to Gov. Ted Strickland urging higher transit support that attendees could sign and mail.
The service-cut plan that Mr. Gee presented to those meetings provided for eliminating 47,000 annual bus-hours of service, which was expected to save the transit authority $1.88 million. While that is more than double the forecast revenue decline in 2010, the transit manager explained beforehand that he expects a further decline in levy revenue while TARTA's expenses continue to rise.
Besides reducing Sunday operating hours, eliminating holidays, and reducing how often buses run on other days, the plan called for eliminating four crosstown commuter-express bus routes whose ridership dwindled after gasoline prices retreated from their $4-per-gallon record high in mid-2008.
While the routes and schedules committee will discuss the revisions Mr. Gee and his staff are now developing for the service-cut plan, the TARTA trustees' approval is not needed to implement it. The transit board would have to approve any fare changes, however.
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