The 8:25 a.m. CCT route 35 bus from the MARTA Holmes station in Atlanta to Cobb Hospital off Austell Road carries a majority of its passengers to and from work.
Staff/Erin Gray
Staff/Erin Gray
At the 1:30 p.m. work session Tuesday, commissioners will hear a progress report from the Cobb Citizen Oversight Committee, which is reviewing county operations for improvements.
The vote on the CCT routes will take place at the 7 p.m. meeting.
If approved, service on Routes 35, 65 and 70, including paratransit service for disabled riders associated with those lines, will stop on Aug. 1.
A fare increase is not being considered at this time.
CCT Director Rebecca Gutowsky said the lines were selected because they were the least used of the system's local routes.
Route 35, for example, costs a little less than $1 million to operate and has an average daily ridership of 313, while Route 30, which runs from the Marietta Transfer Center to MARTA's Holmes Station in Atlanta, has a daily ridership of about 3,000.
Route 65 has an average daily ridership of 481 and travels from the transfer center to Johnson Ferry Baptist Church and, on peak hours, to the Dunwoody MARTA station. Route 70, which goes from Cumberland Boulevard Transfer Center to County Services Parkway, has an average ridership of 462.
Cutting the three lines and the paratransit service associated with each route will save the county about $2.4 million, CCT Director Rebecca Gutowsky said.
"There are two sides: the operating side and revenue side," she said. "The operating costs go down, but you also lose ridership revenues from fares. So it's not quite a $2.4 million in savings, but the budget won't be as big."
Of the CCT's $18.4 million budget for 2011, about 25 to 30 percent is funded by fares, which are $4 for express bus and paratransit and $2 for one-way local routes. The rest of the budget is subsidized by taxpayer money.
In April, commissioners revised the 2011 budget and mandated 10 percent cuts to all departments, including CCT. Because of federal regulations, the agency had to conduct several public meetings and hear feedback before recommending service cuts or fare increases before the changes could be made.
A total of 141 people submitted comments during the public hearing timeframe.
If approved, the cuts will affect about 500 paratransit users.
"That includes those that live in the areas with service or travel into those areas," Gutowsky said.
CCT will be notifying all riders of the service cuts by posting notices on buses, transfer centers, at bus stops along the routes and on its website.
Chairman Tim Lee said the cuts were likely to be approved at the meeting, but steps would be taken to help those affected.
"We're going to reach out to every single person who uses the paratransit system to help them find options," he said.
Gutowsky said some of the paratransit users will qualify for other public programs for disabled riders or through private companies.
Paratransit riders affected by the cuts who need assistance finding new transportation can call (770) 528-1679.
Started in 1989, CCT has 16 local lines, which run along surface streets, and eight express bus lines that travel during peak hours
Paratransit uses smaller buses to serve people with certified disabilities who cannot use the fixed-route system.
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Why not disburse small vans to take you to/from workplace for a little more? Or you can call to schedule a van to pick up at the bus stop? If they're at a stop, they can read off a code posted on panel and verify location. Charge the phone for the service and go pick up the rider. This behavior of running empty buses on routes throughout the day is more wasteful than waiting for a call and shuttling a van to pick up a passenger.
Mass transit doesn’t mean mass stupidity and waste!
Why not disburse small vans to take you to/from workplace for a little more? Or you can call to schedule a van to pick up at the bus stop? If they're at a stop, they can read off a code posted on panel and verify location. Charge the phone for the service and go pick up the rider. This behavior of running empty buses on routes throughout the day is more wasteful than waiting for a call and shuttling a van to pick up a passenger.
Mass transit doesn’t mean mass stupidity and waste!
Sorry ... but at this rate, I don't think CCT is going to last.
That is the percentage of any bus service that should be supplied by the users of the bus system. Most are renters anyway and could easily move closer to their work so they do not have to rely on the taxpayers to subsidize their big, comfortable air-conditioned chauffeured bus ride to work.
If you do not have a car, you do not pay ad valorum taxes and registration every year, car insurance, repairs, maintenance, tires, emissions tests every year, gasoline, oil and car payments as most cars cost over $20,000. With that amount of savings, "low" income bus riders have more discretionary income than those of us who own and drive private automobiles.
To demand that taxpayers pay the more than 70% of the cost of your almost free ride is insanity.
And, unlike us car owners, you never have to bear the devastation of the many illegal alien hit and run accidents who of course have no insurance, no license, no problem.
Who can ride a bus that doesn't have the stops and times of service that make sense? I see bus routes that arrive and depart very nearly on the hour and half hour. (Hello, Route 65!) Don't most people have to be at work on the hour or half hour? Doesn't it make sense to have buses arrive and depart from business centers on the 15 or 45 minute mark to allow a person to make it to/from his office?
If they want the buses to stop running by 6:30, they must only be trying to service shift workers, who know they will always be able to leave work on time. That schedule is too risky for alot of people that may not be able to leave work until the job is done.
The whole thought process behind this setup is ridiculous. Cobb County has little to no bus service currently. So that means the vast majority of it's residents already have transportation. Yet Cobb County is determined to ignore the market and only target lower income ridership. Metro areas that have successful mass transit systems have people of all economic demographics riding them. How is a transit system that limits its customer base in the way CCT does ever going become self sufficient?
There needs to be more focus on providing a transportation product to customers that already have their own means of getting to and from work each day. The improved product would then merit a rate increase.
And the people that run this are the same idiots who want to run light rail!!!!
And just how much more tax will we pay to operate light rail????
Scares the hell out of me!!!!