TriMet plans cuts in neighborhood bus service

By Merry Mackinnon

The Bee, Mar 4, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

ADVERTISEMENTS

Despite TriMet’s monthly reports of record ridership, the transit agency has recently announced that, due to plummeting payroll tax revenue, it plans to cut services on some bus routes, and on MAX light rail.

Proposed cutbacks for buses operating in various parts of the Woodstock, Eastmoreland, Sellwood-Westmoreland, Reed, and Brooklyn neighborhoods include #19-Woodstock, #41-Tacoma, #70-17th/12th Avenue, #74-Lloyd District, #17-Holgate, and #10-Harold.

In February, TriMet held Open Houses to jump-start its public input process on the proposed service cuts, to take effect this September.

“All public input will be looked at and judged,” assures TriMet’s Communications Director Mary Fetsch.

Many of the proposed service reductions were targeted due to their low rates of riders. However, if riders can convince TriMet, for example, that a certain bus at a certain time is their only means of getting to work, then, according to Fetsch, TriMet may reconsider that cutback.

“We’ll have a three-month comment period,” says TriMet Public Information Officer Bekki Witt. “People will have input. That’s why we’re encouraging them to come to the hearings.”

TriMet officials will now take the public’s input, craft a service reduction package, and then hold public hearings from late March to early April.

The cutbacks are in response to a $13.5 million expected shortfall in TriMet’s budget, Fetsch says. Although TriMet expects to receive $48 million of federal stimulus package funds, that money must be targeted, not for service, but for operations – which could include purchasing new buses, but not restoring bus lines to run them on, Fetsch explains.

In the meantime, payroll tax revenue, which makes up over 50 percent of TriMet’s funding, has declined, with the extended recession and increased unemployment in Oregon.

“Nine percent unemployment is a tremendous hit for us,” Fetsch explains. “Roughly, every one percent increase in unemployment reduces our revenues by $2.9 million.”

1 | 2 Next Page >>