Last night’s (Thursday) decision by the Council of Government
directors to privatize the county’s passenger bus service is
welcome relief to taxpayers and serves as belated recognition by
our leaders of where the county’s transport policy was taking
us.
Dear Editor:
Last night’s (Thursday) decision by the Council of Government directors to privatize the county’s passenger bus service is welcome relief to taxpayers and serves as belated recognition by our leaders of where the county’s transport policy was taking us.
What if we don’t change the county’s current transport policy? What will happen if we cling to the “devil we know” rather than change? Well, let’s do a thought experiment to see if we can answer that question.
If San Benito County had 120,000 people who used County Transit, and they took the same average number of trips as they do now (6.4 roundtrips per day), that would be 120,000 x 12 minus 1,440,000 “daily ridership” on County Transit, or 43,200,000 monthly “ridership” or 518,400,000 annual “ridership” as that statistic is currently calculated by COG.
Current daily usage is about 120 per day, which costs us approximately $1 million subsidy payment to MV Transportation, Inc., COG’s operator. So, one thousand times greater ridership means $1 billion annual subsidies paid to MV Transportation.
However, since SBC gets back only 11 cents per dollar that we send to Sacramento, SBC’s taxpayers have to raise approximately $9 million in taxes at present, and in this hypothetical example, would be required to raise one-thousand times more, or $9 billion to send to Sacramento so that County Transit’s “ridership” could have a year’s worth of transport service.
Capital expenditures for purchases such as buses, terminals, etc., would require additional taxes.
I believe that this explains COG’s director’s decision to return to free enterprise, capitalistic transport policy. It is extremely good news for our children and grandchildren.
I salute the brave, wise COG directors on their historical decision. Thank you.
Joseph P. Thompson,
Tres Pinos
