Night riders could be left in the dark

The current economic downturn could soon have Cal Poly’s evening bus riders thumbing for rides unless subsequent state or federal funding for transit operations becomes available.

San Luis Obispo Transit has lost state funding for transit operators, which has spelled out about a $225,000 loss to the city’s bus service, according to John Webster, the transit manager for San Luis Obispo.

“The only way we can offset that is to have additional money coming in from the state or the federal government,” Webster said.

The Local Transportation Fund (LTF) is an accumulation of a one-fourth of a cent sales tax that goes towards funding operations for public transit. But with the recent downturn of consumer spending, the fund has failed to generate enough money to balance the transit budget.

“Retail sales tax is down so funding is down,” Webster said.

In addition to the LTF, the Transportation Development Acts allows public transportation to receive money from State Transit Assistance (STA) funding, which comes from a state tax on gasoline and diesel fuels.

The state diverted $1.3 billion from the

STA into its general fund during the 2007-2008 fiscal year and is attempting to divert $1.4 billion for the current fiscal year. Tentative plans for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, which begins on July 1, are to completely eliminate STA funding for transit.

The combination of the reduction of these two sources of funding have forced SLO Transit to possibly raise fares and reducing services to transit programs across the county, which includes evening bus service in San Luis Obispo.

“The challenge for us is just to maintain the service, let alone expand,” Webster said.

Webster noted that a fare increase would not affect Cal Poly students and staff because the school has a separate revenue agreement with SLO Transit that relies on on-campus ticketing revenue.

On top of the LTF and STA funding funding from bond measures such as proposition 1B, which passed in 2006 and gave the state permission to sell nearly $20 billion worth of bonds for transportation-related improvements, cannot be used for operational costs.

Funding from such bond measures can only be used for capital projects – like purchasing new buses – and not for operational costs.

“You can buy the bus but you can’t pay the driver that drives it,” Webster said.

He also said that there is a possibility of receiving short-term funding from the federal stimulus package.

The evening bus scheduling was put into effect in January 2007 and was expanded to its current full capacity in September of the same year.

The longer service hours, which currently run on the hour from about 7 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., were part of a pilot program started by funding from a state grant and were expected to continue for 18 to 24 months.

Webster said in an e-mail that at the end of that time frame, “If subsequent funding was not provided” then the service would end.

“Even if we close down the evening service, that’s going to require a public hearing for the public to weigh in on,” Webster said. “You can’t just shut it off over night. There is a public process that is required for us to go through.”

Associated Students Inc. is aware of this public process and is currently working on a resolution to submit to the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments.

“We knew that there would be an evaluation process every two years,” said ASI President Angela Kramer. “They are definitely evaluating it, but we have a full recommendation to continue with the program.”

ASI Board of Directors member Kaitlin Spak said that she has been working on the resolution and would recommend continuing the evening service at Cal Poly.

“They’re the one’s that actually make the decision about the decision,” Spak said.

She added that if services needed to be cut that she would personally prefer to see the weekend service end before the evening service.

Kramer remembered when the evening bus service started and referred to it as a “Godsend” for leaving school late.

“This campus would really be taking a step backward if we stopped the night service,” she said.