By Ann Marie Bush, The Topeka Capital-Journal, July 19, 2008
People who use public transit after 6:30 p.m. during the week and on Sundays may have to find a new way to get to and from their destinations.
The Topeka Metropolitan Transit Authority board of directors on Thursday received a report from the Topeka Transit planning department showing that it would be more cost effective to cut evening and Sunday service than to continue it.
The proposed cut comes just a few months after Topeka Transit raised its fares effective May 1.
The agency offers evening service from 6:30 to 11:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 8 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. Sundays. This curb-to-curb service is offered for $3.50 per person one way. Reservations are required.
Disabled people who use the evening and Sunday service ordinarily will be picked up by Topeka Transit personnel using special vehicles. Most of the other reservations are contracted out through Capital City Taxi and Yellow Cab, said Janlyn Nesbett-Tucker, Topeka Transit general manager. More than 90 percent of the evening and Sunday riders are served by the contracted companies.
Although evening and Sunday service ridership has increased nearly 30 percent from fiscal year 2007, it generates less than 2 percent of total ridership, the Topeka Transit report states.
So far in 2008, there have been 29,762 rides on the evening and Sunday service. For the same period, the Lift service — a door-to-door bus service for people with disabilities who are unable to use the wheelchair accessible fixed-route bus system — had 87,147 rides, and the fixed-route bus service had 1.7 million rides. All three services have seen increased ridership.
Revenue from evening and Sunday service is about $104,000 annually, but it costs Topeka Transit more than $318,000 to run it. The evening and Sunday service costs the agency $15.19 per trip, the report stated.
"It was a situation we needed to bring to light," Nesbett-Tucker said Friday.
Funding for the evening and Sunday service comes from a federal grant. Topeka Transit will lose a total of $1.5 million through 2009 because of changes in the way the federal government delivers funding for that grant, the Job Access Reverse Commute grant, a welfare-to-work program.
The number of people who call and make a reservation but fail to show up has increased, too, costing the agency even more money, Nesbett-Tucker said. No-shows have increased 38 percent in the past year. Topeka Transit is charged $5 by the contractor for each no-show. Contractors have reported an increase of 65 percent in no-shows, which is a rise of 1,000 from fiscal year 2007.
"Eventually, we're not going to have any money to pay for the service," Nesbett-Tucker said. "Unless we find another source, we're going to have to cut it completely.
"The cost for operating our services are so outrageous and continue to march on."
Nesbett-Tucker also pointed out that maintenance costs almost have doubled during the past year because the bus fleet is so old.
"We're having to replace engines, transmissions and other major components on our buses," she said. "The problem here is we have a major fleet replacement need, and we don't have federal dollars to begin that replacement process. That limits us in our ability to support other programs and move funds to support underfunded programs like the evening/Sunday service."
Some riders, such as, Tammy Dreasher, 42, would rather see rates increase again instead of cutting service.
"I've been riding for 40 years," Dreasher said. "I'm a single mom, and I use it to go to work on Sundays."
Nesbett-Tucker said there are a few options if the service is discontinued, including reallocating the hours to offer some later service on the most-used fixed routes Monday through Saturday and offering extremely limited Sunday service.
"By cutting service or reallocating hours, we would have a little more control over the significant no-show rate that we have because we would have fixed-route service," she said.
Before any cuts or changes take place, Nesbett-Tucker said, the public will have a chance to respond through special meetings and surveys. Such meetings haven't yet been scheduled.
Ann Marie Bush can be reached at (785) 295-1207 or ann.bush@cjonline.com.
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