Columbia City Council explores alternatives to proposed bus route cuts

The bus system in Columbia continues to lose money, but some City Council members said Wednesday they don’t think cutting three routes with low ridership and raising paratransit fees are necessarily the best option.

Councilman Ian Thomas said he was uncomfortable with cutting the pink, light green and dark green loops even with the low ridership.

“The people that are riding it really need it,” he said. “It’s going to cause chaos in their lives and further undermine our efforts to move towards the transit service we want.”

He suggested the council go with reducing the routes available but also fund flex routes. The transit department had suggested that as one of three options for the council.

Funding flex routes and raising paratransit fees won’t keep them going as long as cutting three routes would, but it would keep the department from going broke over the next five years. If they didn’t make any cuts or raise rates, the department would be broke by 2020.

A flex route would mean the bus service would be on demand, said Mayor Brian Treece.

“Instead of that bus coming by that bus stop every 15 minutes with nobody on the bus, have an on-demand service that you could call,” he said. “Have that bus or a more cost-effective vehicle pick you up and take you to a bus stop where a bus would come within the next 15-minute increment.”

Treece said that’s one example of flexible, hybrid routes they could develop “that make the service more dependable, more cost effective for everybody and get you to where you’re going, whether that’s a job, a job interview or the grocery store.”

The rates that transit users pay are already highly subsidized and many of them aren’t paying the full rate because they qualify for a lower one.

“Even if we raised the amount, they would still be paying the same rate,” said Treece. “I do think it’s appropriate to spread the cost of that service across the entire population and not just the disabled population that relies on that public transit.”

Council members did not take an official stance on whether they would raise the fees or not. That’s still a discussion as well.

Councilman Mike Trapp said he was inclined to support the department’s original proposed cuts.

“Even making these drastic cuts that impact the most struggling people in our community’s lives, we’re still in a terrible financial position,” he said. “I think the staff recommendation is the prudent one, as unpleasant as it is.”