Moorlach

Roughly 30 riders attended OCTA's March 2010 bus cuts community meeting last Thursday, with quite a few speakers (at least 20) including seniors, working professionals, blue-collar workers, students, disabled persons, a homeless person and a former bus driver. Even a member of the Orange County Grand Jury attended. Mayor Pro Tem Cathy Green and Greg Winterbottom — both OCTA directors — chaired the session with Ellen Burton, External Affairs Director of OCTA staff.

The comments made by the public were extremely interesting and engaging. A lot of riders opposed route cuts that would diminish geographic service area, as this would then cannibalize ACCESS, Orange County's current paratransit network, which only services areas 3/4 of a mile from regular bus routes. One Night Owl rider said he, plus many others, use the 24-hour bus routes to get home from work; OCTA staff responded by saying cutting Night Owl would save 5% of the funds as Night Owl requires not just paying the bus driver, but also maintenance, central dispatch, and ACCESS drivers. And a new issue also emerged: a growing number of riders were worried about overcrowded standing-room only buses, particularly those buses that travel at high speeds on the freeway.

Community leaders from the Transit Advocates of Orange County also asked OCTA's board about funds OCTA already has and could use for saving bus service; Jane Reifer mentioned that not printing the quarterly system map would salvage $2 million that could preserve the 24-hour Night Owl routes. I myself asked why OCTA declared a financial crisis and are cannibalizing bus service when they're about to expand the 5, 91, and 405 freeways. OCTA director Greg Winterbottom replied that many of these funds — such as funds dedicated to the freeways — couldn't be switched over as the "color of money" is dedicated to specific purposes. But others argued why OCTA wouldn't be more aggressive with finding funding when OCTA used bus service funding for non-transit programs like the purchase the 91 Express Lanes, widening Bristol Street, and promoting non-public transit programs of Measure M and M2.

I followed the meeting throughout on my HTC Touch Pro2's with a live Twitter session @TransitRiderOC, posted below, from first tweet to last tweet: read more→

OCTA has just posted all the community meetings and the public hearing to give you, the public, an opportunity to comment on the massive service cuts coming this March — and this is also a great way for you to ask about OCTA Board of Director Moorlach's proposal and other proposals to cut 100% of all OCTA bus service.

If you had to attend one meeting, attend the Board of Directors' Public Hearing. Note that OCTA headquarters are at both 550 and 600, but Google Maps gives you the wrong location for 600, so I've put 550 here.

(thanks to Kristin Johnson for the tweet on this info)

October 26, 2009, at 9:00am
OCTA Headquarters
550 S. Main St., Orange, CA.
Near lines 53, 56, 83, and a bit of a walk from 54.

Your elected politicians — who happen to control OCTA's actions — attend every Board of Directors meeting, not community meetings, and decide what and where to cut. If more people attend this meeting, this tells them that they can't ignore your needs as a transit rider.

The other community meetings are held by OCTA's staff (different from the OCTA Board of Directors). Staff take your input at these meetings and package everyone's responses into a Powerpoint slideshow and handout to then give to the Board of Directors. You really should attend the Board of Directors meeting, but if you can't, attend one or all of these three community meetings.

September 24, 2009, 6:00pm-8:00pm
OCTA Headquarters
550 S. Main St., Orange, CA.
Near lines 53, 56, 83, and a bit of a walk from 54.

September 29, 2009, 6:00pm-8:00pm
Anaheim Community Center
250 E. Center St., Anaheim - 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Near lines 42, 43, 47, 147.

October 1, 2009, 6:00pm-8:00pm
Laguna Hills Community Center
25555 Alicia Pkwy., Heritage Room B&C, Laguna Hills - 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Near lines 87, 91, 188. read more→

I'll be out much of this week so there will be more fluffy articles starting Wednesday.

There seems to be more and more posts agreeing with OCTA director John Moorlach's idea to cut 100% of OCTA's bus service, and unfortunately, a lot of them are resorting to lies and exaggerations.

The Orange County Register, a libertarian-leaning newspaper, wants to see OCTA bus service decimated and reduced to a privately run system :

Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach raised eyebrows with his comments last week in response to plummeting bus ridership numbers. "Is there a point where maybe a bus system isn't even necessary?" he asked at an Orange County Transportation Authority board meeting. Mr. Moorlach, who also is an OCTA board member, was referring to a $4 million to $5 million bus revenue shortfall because of a 20-percent drop in riders. The agency has increased fares – an odd thing to do when ridership already is falling – and cut back on its bus service by about 7 percent. Mr. Moorlach explained that his comments were "theoretical."

Although OCTA officials and some local observers were aghast by the statement, we applaud this thought experiment, which challenges a taken-for-granted institution. The bus service is highly subsidized – fares pay 20 percent of the cost of the service – and rather inefficient. As always happens with government agencies, they tend to operate mainly for the benefit of the well-paid people who work there rather than for the benefit of customers. We see that whenever there are driver contract negotiations or whenever we get a glimpse of the sort of salaries and benefits paid by the agency. The customer is something of an afterthought in this system.

When revenue is down or state funds dry up, the first instinct of OCTA is to cut service, not to cut salaries or staff or to create better efficiencies. The public transit model encourages agencies to have drivers haul around large buses, which often are nearly empty. ...

It's too bad that the OC Register is resorting to lies like the buses "often are nearly empty"; I challenge them to find an empty bus running down State College Blvd in Anaheim, Westminster, or even down Culver in Irvine. And it's too bad the OC Register exaggerates about how government agencies "always" exist for the benefit of themselves. That's clearly not the case for agencies like BART (the Bay Area Rapid Transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area), which, were it not for its existence, would result in unusually jammed freeways and heavy traffic if the system were shut down. That particular government agency — just like OCTA's bus system — benefits the environment, unclogs freeways, and provides mobility for seniors, the disabled, and those not privileged enough to have drivers' licenses. read more→