Lane Transit District will consider cutting services in 2009, despite record ridership, because of high gas prices. The district will also raise group passes such as the ASUO’s by more than eight percent in 2009, which will likely disconcert an executive team that campaigned on increasing campus bus service without paying significantly more for it.
The cuts being considered would not happen until September 2009.
ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz and Vice President Johnny Delashaw campaigned on extending bus hours between campus, downtown Eugene and off-campus housing. They also have pledged to subject contracted services such as LTD’s to greater scrutiny.
LTD spokesman Andy Vobora said Sunday that the potential 15 percent cut in services likely will not have much affect on campus. Vobora said two routes “which are not heavily used by students” – the 3x to River Road Station and the 8x to Thurston Station – could be affected. Two buses to West Amazon Parkway could be combined or reduced to run only during peak hours, he said.
Vobora said other campus routes are heavily used by students and would likely not be reduced, but added that “everything is on the table with a 15 percent cut.”
LTD has had a record number of riders recently. More than 50,000 people rode shuttles to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, and an extra 15,000 rode the EmX line during that time. The Butte to Butte race brought 3,500 riders, and another 27,000 went to the Oregon Country Fair.
According to LTD’s Web site, the 2007-08 fiscal year brought a record 11.4 million boardings, a 17 percent increase from the previous year.
“That’s a good thing, but it’s not going to be a good thing if we can’t sustain ourselves in the future,” Vobora said. “We’re just getting eaten alive by fuel increases.”
Each dollar increase in gas prices adds one million dollars to LTD’s operating budget. The district spent close to $600,000 more than budgeted on gas last year, Vobora said, and this year gas will probably cost a million more than the previous year.
LTD’s group passes, which allow all students to ride buses with the flash of a University identification card, increase each year to keep up with gas prices and other costs. Next year, all group passes will increase by 8.8 percent, Vobora said.
This year the ASUO is paying LTD $870,000; an 8.8 percent increase would bring the total to $946,560.
That increase, especially without an increase in services, will not be popular with the ASUO administration that has already expressed dissatisfaction with the services LTD currently provides.
The executive currently has a volunteer transportation adviser, a rarity in student government. Nick Schillaci, a political science major, is a volunteer with a lifelong interest in transportation policy who is treated as an executive staff member. Schillaci said he started a Facebook account questioning LTD’s services before he ever met Dotters-Katz or Delashaw.
“I went into this specifically with the goal of providing more transportation to the University of Oregon,” he said. After moving to Eugene and finding himself stranded several times just after 9 p.m., he said he did some research and found that LTD is in “the lower 5 or 10 percent” of late-night service is college towns of a comparable size or smaller.
Schillaci said he wants to maintain LTD services on key routes that serve large populations of students, and find ways to increase late-night transportation options.
Dotters-Katz said that having a transportation adviser is proof of his commitment to transportation issues, and that he is willing to negotiate.
“In the past, contract negotiations with LTD have left ASUO execs with their hands tied behind their backs,” he said, because the district views the increases as mandatory for all organizations with group passes. “But that flies in the face of the definition of a negotiation.”
Dotters-Katz said he is looking for a compromise with LTD “that maintains our campaign promise but is reasonable for everybody.” He said last year LTD “came in and said ‘This is what it is. This is what all groups are paying.’ And that’s what it was. There was no negotiation. And that’s unacceptable.”
ASUO Chief of Staff Athan Papailiou, who has long opposed large increases in the budgets of student fee-distributing committees, pointed out that the budget of the committee that will fund LTD cannot increase by more than 7 percent each year without the unanimous approval of the Student Senate.
But individual contracts such as LTD’s can increase by more than 7 percent as long as the committee’s budget does not exceed the cap set by the ASUO constitution. However, Papailiou said he expects more than one contract to want an increase.
“LTD as well as many of our other contracts need to provide more data to the ASUO to justify any sort of increase,” he said, including “concrete ridership data.”
“Any conversation with LTD about an increase would have to include conversations about increased services and data in terms of ridership. If they are reluctant to do so, the LTD leadership may not find the budget satisfying,” he said.