Lane Transit District will reduce its budget by $1 million next year, which will likely change two popular student routes and decrease hours for late-running buses.
LTD is holding an open house Feb. 28 for public input, and their board will make a final decision March 20.
Ridership is growing on LTD buses, but the economic downturn has decreased payroll tax revenue, which supplies LTD with a large portion of its income, and left the service with a $2.5 million deficit.
LTD spokesman Andy Vobora said the cuts are far-reaching enough to eliminate the entire 78 route, which connects the University to the West Eugene neighborhood — and at least 380 students who live at the University’s Westmoreland Family Housing. The route shuttles 394,000 passengers each year, and students living off West 18th Avenue will have to use one of three indirect routes to get to school once the 78 is cut.
“The travel time may be extended 5 to 10 minutes,” Vobora said.
University student and West Eugene resident Andrea Decker said she wishes LTD would keep the route, as she rides it as often as twice a day.
“I only have to walk two blocks to catch my bus right now,” she said.
Vobora said LTD may consider keeping a scaled-down version of the 78 if enough students voice opposition to the cut.
The bus company is also cutting hours on the 11 route, which connects 241,000 people each year to the Eugene, University, Springfield and Thurston stations.
The bus will continue to run every ten minutes in the morning, but will come only four times an hour in the afternoon, when LTD officials determined students didn’t use it as much.
With routes on the chopping block, University Parking and Transportation manager Rand Stamm said he hopes students will go out of their way to rely on LTD’s park-and-ride system or find a way to campus that doesn’t involve driving. The University sells more than twice as many parking passes as there are spaces, and Stamm said parking services can’t cope with any more cars.
LTD is also looking at rolling back operating hours so some of the last buses of the evening leave at 10:40 p.m. instead of 11:40 p.m.
With the University looking to schedule classes later in the day to accommodate increasing enrollment, LTD’s time change could affect student transportation even more.
ASUO Vice President Joy Nair said the University must take LTD scheduling changes into consideration when planning later classes so students aren’t forced to walk home late at night without a functioning bus service.
Nair is urging students to attend LTD’s Feb. 28 open house, and Vobora said LTD wants to know what students think about cuts to popular routes such as the 78.