Pierce Transit next steps
By Lars Erickson, Pierce Transit
LAKEWOOD – Friday the Pierce Transit Board of Commissioners met for a day long work session to discuss the agency’s future and when to implement service reductions after the rejection of Prop 1 in November. Federal regulations require a detailed analysis of service reductions and a robust public process, which takes approximately six months. Based on financial updates and staff recommendations, the Board asked staff to prepare detailed timelines and service plans that implement reductions in either September 2013 or February 2014 for review at the January 14, 2013 Board Meeting.
“Pierce Transit is still fighting for our riders and the public. We continue to look for efficiencies, we’re making cuts, and working hard to maintain the highest quality of service possible,” said Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland, Pierce Transit Board Chair. “Bus service will continue in all of our member jurisdictions.”
“Implementation of cuts in either September 2013 or February 2014 means there will be many public meetings during the first part of the year,” said Lynne Griffith, Pierce Transit CEO. “We hope there is robust public input as these plans go out to communities.”
Category: Government, Lakewood, Pierce County, Tacoma
Until the cuts at PT go beyond cuts in service and include numbers of employees, management, wages and benefits,as well as increases in fare box collections they’ll be kidding themselves. Public transportation only makes sense in urban areas and between urban areas. Time for PT to downsize to only those urban areas that make sense.
Shadow is correct. The only public mass transit able to pay for itself without much public funding is transit located in densely populated cities.
Though that seems obvious, it wasn’t until I had time to research the history of Los Angeles’ electric trolley system that I really understood that it wasn’t just suburban sprawl that made transit impractical. L.A.’s trolley system was built and subsidized by realtors who were building developments beyond the original city limits. The trolleys took prospective buyers to those developments and helped sell the homes because buyers had a way to travel back for shopping and doctors, etc. Most families until 1960, had only one car, used by one parent, usually the father, to get to his job. Wives and children took the trolley and then buses to stores, doctors, museums, parks, everything during the work week. Because real estate was huge business from 1920 onward, its profits paid for the transit. Transit was passed to the city and then to suburban cities surrounding L.A. Transit was still highly used and trolleys and buses were packed until 1960, when two cars per family became common. The second car replaced tranist and emptied buses.
For sprawling western cities and counties, the question is how much is the general populace willing to pay for transit to help a small population who cannot drive for whatever reason…because transit cannot support itself, and really never did beyond a few very highly populated cities in the east.