The Lane Transit District provides a services to University Students in the form of free bus rides, as long as students provide a valid student ID. In recent days, the Programs Finance Committee has questioned whether the funding model under which LTD currently operates – simply using enrollment projections to determine future budgetary needs – is suitable. As some members of the PFC have stated, many students do not use LTD, yet students have been asked to cough up another $732,000 for next year.
The LTD is an independent business whose interests are based on monetary needs. It provides a service, and for that students pay a hefty fee. It is understandable that LTD would want to be compensated for its services, but the way LTD’s contract is negotiated takes into account the University’s total enrollment – not simply students who use the bus. Clearly, LTD wants to avoid free rider problems; and in this case, a “free rider” problem is literal and not simply an economic metaphor.
The PFC is correct, however, to question LTD’s budgeting logic: If only 2,300 students ride the bus regularly, as Student Sen. Jacob Daniels estimates, why should the rest of the University community pick up the tab for services they do not receive? Tying LTD’s contract budget to enrollment – thereby allowing LTD to ask for a 7.7 percent budget increase, which is well above the PFC’s recommendation – is wrongheaded and acts as an oversimplification of the numbers.
As a service that serves the Eugene/Springfield area, LTD requires a constant flow of money. Nevertheless, it should not be the University’s job to subsidize a business, especially when many students do not directly benefit from the service. For too long, LTD has remained fiscally unaccountable. The least students should expect from LTD is an independent audit of its user numbers.
At the Jan. 11 PFC hearing, LTD did not provide any sort of data on student usage. On Jan. 24 , however, LTD provided rider numbers from a five-day period in 2005. LTD counted approximately 6,600 student IDs using an electronic system, which translated to an estimated 2,300 individual students when transfers and multiple rides were accounted for.
This raises a question: If LTD had access to these figures, why did it not present them earlier? It would have been a positive, albeit small, first step. Nonetheless, it does not go far enough. The LTD must institute a forward-thinking policy that keeps track of the numbers. Perhaps LTD needs to investigate its rider data over an extended period of time or institute a new policy that ensures that students are not being taken advantage of.
At the moment, students are being used as a monetary resource for LTD. That’s only acceptable if the money is not being wasted. The budget model with which LTD currently operates is unacceptable, and it is perfectly legitimate for members of the PFC to question LTD on these matters. In recent years, LTD has cut services, including routes and route times. The once-vaunted Breeze shuttle does not even operate on the weekends anymore, yet the LTD continues to gouge students for money using an overly simplified budget model.
It may sound cliché, but students are being taken for a ride. It is time for LTD to stand accountable.