Council endorses
plan to raise
bus fares againThe rate hike would make
Honolulu one-way adult bus
fares the highest in the country
The City Council has come up with a compromise bus fare hike plan -- including the highest adult one-way fare in the country -- that will restore bus service cuts and avoid layoffs.
"We're making the best of a bad situation," Councilwoman Barbara Marshall said yesterday. "We don't like having to do it. We certainly don't like having to increase fares again, but we're doing it because we feel it's necessary."
Marshall was among five of the nine-member Council who stood on the steps of Honolulu Hale to endorse the plan, which will come up for final approval Wednesday. Other Council members who were not at the hastily called news conference also indicated they support the plan.
The proposal would require:
>> Adults pay $2 per ride. Adult single fares are currently $1.75, which is an increase of 25 cents as of July 1. Mayor Jeremy Harris had previously said that if the Council raises the adult cash fare to $2, it would make the fare the highest in the country.
>> Youths, senior citizens and the disabled be charged $1 at the fare box. All three groups currently pay 75 cents per ride.
>> Monthly passes go up to $40 for adults and $20 for youths. Adult passes are now $30, and youth passes, $13.50. The adult pass was $27 before July 1.
>> A new monthly pass for seniors and the disabled will cost $5. Both groups will also have the option of paying $30 for an annual pass. Currently they pay $25 every two years.
Free transfers will remain, but riders will only get to use the transfer once.
Low-income adult and youth riders who qualify would be able to get a break and pay the current bus rates. About 14,500 households on Oahu would be eligible.
"We're going to avoid layoffs and come up with the money necessary to keep our buses rolling when they do decide to start rolling again," Council Transportation Chairman Nestor Garcia said.
Layoffs and cutbacks had been an issue at the bargaining table in the bus strike negotiations. Without the increase in fares, the city faced cutting 100,000 hours of bus service and laying off bus drivers.
But Local 996 of the Teamsters Union and Oahu Transit Services Inc., the private company running the city bus system, are now deadlocked on wages. The union went out on strike Aug. 26.
Oahu Transit Services has promised not to lay off workers if the fare hike is passed.
"It will help the strike, I think, because it will prevent any kind of layoffs. It will allow us to give back the benefits that they had already earned in previous negotiations," Council Chairman Gary Okino said.
Last week, two City Council committees voted down several Council bus fare plans because none of them raised the needed $6.8 million in additional revenues to stave off service cuts and layoffs, and there was no majority supporting one plan.
Council members instead moved Harris' plan but vowed that they would come up with a compromise version.
Ann Kobayashi, the Council's Budget Committee chairwoman, said she supports the proposal because seniors will not pay any more than $30 a year.
Okino said: "It does concern me, but I think that's the only way that we could put together a package that comes up $6.8 million. We don't like to raise fares, but in this case I think it's necessary."
Marshall said that testimony received by the Council indicated that people were already paying the $1.75 with $2 because the bus does not give change. "That was another motivating factor for us."
