OCTA Board to preserve Night Owl service until December

At the Board of Directors meeting yesterday, 40 bus riders appeared and 20 made the case for the Board to preserve Night Owl service until the massive bus service cut in December of this year. An excerpt from the recent Transit Advocates e-mail sent out spells the details in bold:

While we will be losing approximately 100,000 service hours in frequency cuts and new short turns which will be very painful, at least they will be keeping weekday “span” (first and last buses of the day) for routes with more than 8 riders or 8 riders devised from combining 2 lower-ridership trips. We also got a reprieve on Night Owl service until December – an additional 3 months. At that time, it will be eliminated unless staff recommends that some Night Owl service be saved based on specific employer needs.

As predicted, they also asked staff to come back in 30 days with a plan for the next round of service cuts in December, and what it would look like to implement the full remaining 300,000 service hours cuts all at once, instead of staggered over 3 more service changes.

Director Bill Campbell was valiant in his efforts to explain bus riders’ needs, and was supported by Director Pat Bates and Director Richard Dixon.

This story made the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, Telemundo, and KOCE's “Real Orange” (Thursday at 6:30 and 11:00 PM, Friday at 8:00 AM).