A recently completed plan could bring substantial changes to San
Benito County’s transit system.
Hollister – A recently completed plan could bring substantial changes to San Benito County’s transit system.
Consulting firm Moore and Associates has prepared a draft of the county’s new short-range transit plan, last updated in 1995. The plan states that the County Express transit system comes up short in several ways, and it includes a long list of suggested changes.
“On the surface, it appears public transit is not capturing a significant share of the total trips currently being made within the County Express service area,” the consultants wrote.
The plan includes both an analysis of the existing system and suggestions for the future. It identifies five possible directions for County Express, ranging from keeping the current system, to eliminating all fixed-route buses and keeping only dial-a-ride services, to changing the current bus routes and adding another.
Asked which of the options will actually be implemented, Lisa Rheinheimer, executive director of the Council of San Benito County Governments, said that decision will be made after talks with COG’s board of directors and the general public.
“I don’t know at this point, honestly,” she said. “There are some good recommendations in there, for sure.”
County Supervisor Don Marcus, who sits on the COG board, said he wants to improve the bus system without increasing expenses.
“We have to watch that we don’t extend the routes so that the costs become excessive,” he said.
COG operates the bus system through its capacity as the Local Transportation Authority.
According to Moore and Associates’ survey of bus riders, the average County Express user is female, between the ages of 23 and 59, doesn’t have any mobility impairments and either doesn’t have a driver’s license or doesn’t have access to a personal vehicle. Almost half of the riders made less than $20,000 per year.
The short-range transit plan includes other suggestions, such as starting bus service earlier and ending it later, improving customer service and using a system of warnings and, eventually, transit restrictions to make sure people show up when they call dial-a-ride.
In the plan, Moore and Associates compared San Benito’s service with Madera, Tulare, Amador and Kings counties. During fiscal year 2005-06, the local system fell below the inter-county average in several key measures.
Locally, each bus carried about 7.7 passengers per hour, compared with the inter-county average of 8.46. And San Benito County’s 6.3 percent farebox recovery rate – the amount of operating costs covered by rider fares – was less than half of the inter-county average of 12.8 percent. It also fell below the 10 percent mandated by the Transit Development Act.
Rheinheimer said farebox recovery fell due to route changes in 2004, and the TDA allows transit agencies “recovery time” after such changes. Farebox recovery has gone up since then, she said.
LTA previously reported that by the end of 2006, farebox recovery had increased to 13.5 percent.
Rheinheimer also said LTA is already improving the system. The agency has hired Transportation Planner Betty Li to focus exclusively on the transit system, Rheinheimer said. LTA’s new contract with MV Transportation, which operates the system, should also lead to better customer service, she added, through an on-bus camera that automatically activates when the bus driver starts, stops or turns too quickly, and through better tracking of bus punctuality.
And although Rheinheimer said that buses running early is “a big no-no,” the consultants found that 40 percent of county buses completed their routes early and only 53 percent were on time overall.
“We have work to do,” Rheinheimer said. “(The short-range plan) is the first step to getting the system back on schedule.”
Under the new contract, LTA will pay MV Transportation around $2.7 million to operate the bus system for three years.
