Strike, fare hike
could lose riders
The double whammy of a bus strike combined with a potential bus fare hike could mean fewer riders on city buses once the strike is over, experts say.
"You always lose some ridership," said Ed Scannell, a spokesman for the Los Angles County Metropolitan Transportation Co.
The Los Angeles system, which includes bus and rail, saw a 29 percent drop in fare box receipts after a 32-day strike in the fall of 2000.
Prior to the strike, MTA averaged 1.2 million boardings a day. That number went down to a little more than 1 million boardings a day when the strike ended. Within four to five months after the strike, ridership was up to pre-strike levels.
The bus system in Las Vegas was already hit hard by a decline in tourism following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when bus drivers walked off the job on May 20, 2002.
"Ridership was already low, so it's hard to say if it was the bus strike or the economy all the way around. It's just started coming back this summer," said Ingrid Reisman, communications manager for the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada.
The month before the attacks, ridership was at 4.5 million trips per month and dropped by 400,000 after the attacks. By December, ridership went down to 3.7 million. The month before the strike, ridership came in at 4 million trips, and after the five-week strike, ridership plummeted to 3.5 million.
Vancouver, British Columbia, endured a four-month strike that started April 1, 2001.
Canadian census bureau reports said that British Columbia experienced its biggest decline in the proportion of workers using public transportation after the walkout ended, a decrease that officials said could be explained by the bus strike.
A year later, ridership was still struggling to return.
"Sometimes when people are forced into a situation to find another way to get to work, they stick with that," said MTA's Scannell. There is always some turnover in ridership, and he said he believes new riders replaced the riders who stopped using mass transit.
Raising fares could also cause ridership decline.
Two City Council committees meet today to consider two fare plans designed to make up a budget shortfall that resulted in bus service cuts. The industry-accepted rule of thumb says that for every 10 percent increase in fares, expect a 4 percent decrease in ridership, said Dennis Hinebaugh, transit program director with the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of Southern Florida.
When bus fares were raised in 2001 in Honolulu, officials did not see a ridership decline until after Sept. 11, 2001.
Hinebaugh, in a quick look at the proposal to reduce single adult fares to $1 and raise monthly passes to as high as $80, said the proposal "does seem reasonable."
He said the average single-ride adult fare for all of the bus systems in the United States is $1.24.
"So the $1 proposed fare is certainly a fair fare," he said. "The other proposed monthly pass fares seem very reasonable and must have been significantly discounted before."
The proposal would also eliminate transfers, which could also have an impact on riders.
"Fares appear to go down for those riders making a one-seat trip and up for those having one or more transfers," he said. "So it appears that many are impacted positively and many negatively."
Hinebaugh also said that it is not uncommon for systems to eliminate transfers.
"It has always been a difficult assignment for operators to deal with transfers and their associated abuse," he said.
Mayor Jeremy Harris said that the fare proposal introduced early last week is the only proposal that works.
He said another proposal drafted by Council members Barbara Marshall and Donovan Dela Cruz is $5 million shy of the $6.8 million needed to restore bus services and avoid layoffs and goes in the wrong direction philosophically.
Harris said he would also propose the Council add a $2 cash fare for visitors.
Star-Bulletin reporter Craig Gima contributed to this story.
