Bus ridership down slightly
The city projects an increase in
revenue of $6.7 million next year
Bus ridership is still slightly down from a year ago as a result of last year's bus strike, but monthly revenues are up, a city official told City Council members yesterday.
The city is projecting bus revenues will bring in $39.2 million next fiscal year, or $6.7 million more than the current year, city Transportation Director Cheryl Soon told the Council Budget Committee yesterday.
Soon showed charts reporting February ridership of 5.1 million trips, just under February 2003 ridership of 5.4 million trips.
"What's occurring in the current (fiscal) year is a confluence of the fact that you had a strike where you didn't take any revenues in ... as well as a drop of ridership in the whole strike period," Soon said. "Then of course, we did have a fare increase to try to mitigate against what otherwise would have been quite disastrous here."
In September, the Council passed a number of increases, with adult bus fares going to $2 from $1.75, to help settle the strike.
Soon said officials originally projected that bus fare revenues would bring in $35.7 million for the current fiscal year. But because of the strike, revenue will likely come in at $32.5 million.
Soon said next year's revenue projection is based on assumptions that include ridership returning to pre-strike levels by the first quarter of the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
"We have less ridership than we had a year ago each month but we have more revenue -- that's because of the increase in fares," she said. "(The strike) hasn't driven away ridership that we're getting less revenues -- we're still netting more."