NY Times: Downturn Forces Transit Cuts Even as Ridership Grows

[marmar]

Downturn Forces Transit Cuts Even as Ridership Grows
By MICHAEL COOPER

Published: February 3, 2009


ST. LOUIS — There are some 2,300 bus stops around St. Louis where the buses will no longer stop at the end of next month, when, despite rising ridership, the cash-strapped transit system plans to lay off a quarter of its workforce and make drastic service cuts to balance its books.

One of the stops scheduled to be cut is in the western suburb of Chesterfield, Mo., just up the road from a bright, cheerful nursing home called the Garden View Care Center. When the bus no longer goes there, roughly half of the center’s kitchen staff and half of its housekeeping staff — people like Laura Buxton, a cook known for her fried chicken who comes in from Illinois, and Danette Nacoste, who commutes two hours each way from her home in South St. Louis to her job in the laundry — will find themselves with no way to get to work.

“They’re going to be stranding a whole lot of people,” said Val Butler, a nurse’s assistant, who said that she feared the prospect of having to seek work elsewhere in a tightening economy if she cannot get to the job she has held for a decade at Garden View. “A lot of people are going to lose their jobs. A lot of people.”

St. Louis may be girding itself for some of the most extreme transit cuts in the nation, but it is hardly alone. Transit systems across the country are raising fares and cutting service even after attracting record numbers of riders last year, when many drivers fled $4-a-gallon gas prices and stop-and-go traffic for seats on buses and trains.

Their problem is that fare-box revenue accounts for only a fifth to a half of the operating revenue of most transit systems — and the sputtering economy has eroded the state and local tax collections that the systems depend on to keep running. Many transit systems are cutting service even as demand is up. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/us/04transit.html?_r=1&hp

[KamaAina]

1. What is truly scary is that that means the end of paratransit in much of St. Louis County

(the city of St. Louis is an independent city, like Baltimore; adjacent St. Louis County includes most of its suburbs)

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that fixed-route transit operators provide complementary paratransit (Access-A-Ride in NYC, Handi-Van out here, etc.) for people whose disabilities preclude them from riding the fixed-route bus.

The catch is, they're only required to serve areas that are within three-quarters of a mile of the regular fixed-route service. So, if these draconian cuts go into effect (Chicago faced a similar doomsday scenario but was eventually bailed out by the same Legislature that just gave Pay-Rod the heave-ho), people living in outer suburban areas will be completely cut off. "Well, that's just too bad! Why don't you just move inside I-270?" :sarcasm:

edit: also note that this came about because a transit funding measure failed in November. Car-driving suburbanites who voted No may be surprised to learn how many of their service businesses, like the nursing home described, will suffer as a result.

[DCKit]

2. " fare-box revenue accounts for only a fifth to a half of the operating revenue ..."

I'd set some pitbull accountants on these transit systems to find out where the money's being spent.