City bus riders’ pleas heard

• By GREG GARLAND
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 22, 2009 - Page: 1B

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Sometimes, Orinda Maten is lucky and draws a shift at the Walmart store off Siegen Lane that ends early enough to allow her to catch a bus home at night.

On those nights when she works late, though, she often ends her workday with a two-mile walk back to the Crestwood Suites Extended Stay Hotel on South Sherwood Forest Boulevard.

“I walk ’cause I need a job,”  said Maten, who works in the store’s deli. “I got to do what I got to do.”

Maten was among more than  100 public transit users to pack a public hearing last week to protest plans to cut already limited evening bus routes even further.

The cuts in evening hours were among the steps the Capital Area Transit System’s board was proposing to deal with a $700,000 shortfall in its budget for 2010.

But the anguished pleas of riders not to curtail evening services appear to have paid off — at least in part.

Bus company managers said they worked with Mayor-President Kip Holden’s staff on a revised plan Thursday that keeps most nighttime route schedules close to their existing levels.

Instead of the latest buses pulling out of  home terminals for their final runs at 6:35 p.m. or 7:35 p.m., as had been proposed, the last ones will depart  between 8 p.m. and 9:45 p.m., depending on the route.

That’s about an hour earlier than the current evening schedules, but keeps buses on the road much longer than in the original proposal.
Gary Owens, the bus company’s chief financial officer, said only the most underutilized evening routes were targeted for elimination in the revised plan.

“This affects very few people,” Owens said. “It’s the minimal effect we can do. We have to balance the budget.”

Chris Tyson, chairman of the bus company’s board of directors, said officials found federal funding resources to draw from and adjusted its estimates on fuel costs to keep more of the evening routes while still presenting a balanced budget.

“These are only short-term fixes,” Tyson said. “On the horizon are serious funding concerns for 2011.”

He said it is also possible the bus company might require an additional cash infusion in the middle of next year.