Students might have to pay an extra $170,875 next year to save bus routes to the Kinsrow area in the face of drastic cuts to the Lane Transit District.
LTD has asked the ASUO to help pay for augmentations to route 79x, which would be needed to cope with the proposed route cuts that include the deletion of route 79. Routes 79 and 79x primarily provide service to students living in Ducks Village, Stadium Park Apartments and Chase Village.
LTD spokesperson Andy Vobora informed ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz in an e-mail over the weekend of LTD’s desire for more student funding.
In the e-mail, Vobora described a past situation in which Sacred Heart Medical Center paid for the 75x route. The route serviced Sacred Heart, but was eventually cut when the new RiverBend facility was opened, according to the e-mail.
The augmentations to the 79x are needed to cope with the loss of the 79 route, which would be cut along with many other routes if LTD’s proposed service cuts are approved.
The 79 is currently the only route between campus and the Kinsrow area after 6:28 p.m. In order to rectify that loss, route 79x would be extended to run later.
But the $170,875 needed to augment the 79x may be too much for the ASUO to handle.
The request comes in addition to a proposed eight percent increase in the ASUO’s contract with LTD, which cost students $815,857 in incidental fee funds last year. The extra money could push the ASUO’s contract with LTD to more than $1 million at a time when LTD is already cutting major student routes, including the Breeze.
“We have no clue where (the money) will come from,” said Walid Wahed, executive appointee to the ASUO Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee, which is responsible for negotiating the LTD contract, the largest group ridership contract that LTD has.
If the ACFC chooses to fund the augmentations, the money would likely come out of other major contracts, such as ticketing and the Daily Emerald, Wahed said.
Nick Schillaci, the ASUO transportation coordinator, said LTD is facing a lower budget but increased ridership, and a faltering economy.
On Monday night there was an unofficial meeting between Dotters-Katz, Wahed, Schillaci, and ASUO Senate President Alex McCafferty to discuss the problem.
At the meeting many potential solutions were discussed, including cutting next year’s contract with LTD entirely.
If the ASUO chooses to cut the contract with LTD, nearly $1 million in incidental fee money would be free to work on other solutions to the problem; however, a lack of official studies on regular student ridership makes any discussion of cutting the contract tenuous at best.
“We can’t take anything off the table,” McCafferty said.
Regardless of the ASUO’s decision, students are going to be impacted by the changes.
“For us, it’s really clutch,” freshman Theo Crotti said. “Not everyone has a bike or a car.” Crotti is currently living in Stadium Park apartments and stressed the importance of the bus in the winter when it starts to rain.
“The buses are always way too crowded,” said sophomore Kenny Peterson, who also lives in the Stadium Park apartments. “They need more buses if anything.”
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LTD needs students’ money to operate 79x
Daily Emerald
October 20, 2008
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