Outlook Grim For SoCal Bus Agency

[WhoozOn1st]

In 2005 the Orange County Transportation Authority was named best in the country. Goodbye to all that. As little use as AU readers may have for buses, there's no getting around the fact that they're a major urban and suburban public transit mode - sometimes the only one available. When funding falls off a cliff, requiring major changes for the worse, it's not good for anybody.

OCTA's quick decline, bleak future

"Since December, the OCTA has cut 133,000 hours of bus service. The agency plans to subtract 100,000 more hours next month, and an additional 300,000 in March."

BTW, the online version of the L.A. Times has recently been redesigned and reformatted. Since I generally only use it for posting stories found in the actual newspaper I'm a little slow on the uptake, navigationwise. The new e-mail edition uses a proprietary browser to replicate the newspaper's appearance.

 

[Rumpled]

I'm an occasional OCTA rider and some of the numbers in that article don't add up or make sense.

They've dropped in excess of 133k hours of service and yet very few (42) employees - and five months after the service cuts.

$300 million in losses over five years; yet the numbers mentioned in the article don't seem to come to more than $44 million per year - large increases year to year?

As far as budgets assuming 5% growth per year; the housing starts around here have been in decline for a number of years - and that's always driven growth here.

Another problem I have with OCTA is they have no discount on daily fare for kids. I think they should. Same with Metrolink.

And another kicker in the article about Metrolink. The ever promised OC expansion of service delayed yet again.