Three options for cutting bus service
OCTA's staff detailed 3 ways for making this September's cuts at the last OCTA Transit Committee meeting. OCTA's Board of Directors will vote on one of these options at their meeting on Monday, June 8, 2009; this meeting is open to the public, so come by to make your voice heard.
Three options:
- Option A: Staff prefer this option as the "best business case" scenario:
- Service reduction on 29 bus routes.
- Discontinue owl service.
- Option B: Discontinue owl service, but extend selected trips on 4 routes up to about 1 AM in morning.
- Option C: Preserve owl service.
According to their staff, the "problem with B and C is that to achieve the 100,000 revenue vehicle hours' savings, they'll have to find other service reductions to make up for hours lost." Although the numbers are small, a lot of night-shift workers in the Anaheim resort area, particularly Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, will be hit. I know some of my medical school classmates hoped to use Night Owl service when we start rotations through UC Irvine's Medical Center, or if we're called into the hospital early at 3:00 am.
The details for these three options landed in my e-mail; I've pasted the images here so you can see which of your favorite buses will get cuts.
Comments
Three options for cutting bus service
Thank you for posting these!
I’d like to add that the problem with options B and C is that in order to preserve Night Owl service they propose cutting back on how late OTHER bus lines run. This puts the board in the untenable position of having to decide to preserve someone’s late night service over someone else’s. It puts riders in a position of having to advocate either for cuts to night owl service or for cuts to late night service on routes that the public has not had a chance to see – these choices were not made available before the public hearing! B and C are obviously the better options for night owl service. We could advocate for Option B and suggest making up for the “extra expense” by having them defer those choices until the December service change.
Some of the board is now also proposing that the following 3 service change cuts be combined into one large one taking place in December. If this happens, it’s likely that the money they save by making these cuts sooner can cover the costs of deferring Night Owl preservation “backfill” until then. I would also advocate to defer all “new” cuts until December – ones that were added after the original 22-route September service change cuts were announced, and there are lots of these! It’s not fair for them to make cuts that were never announced.