On Wednesday, the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District held a Transit Talk to discuss a 30 percent service reduction for routes throughout Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria. The UCSB graduate student population is very concerned with the proposed bus service reduction. The Graduate Students Association created a brief survey to gather comments on Tuesday and in only 24 hours they received 163 responses. Officers gathered information regarding the most common concerns student have and also collected service suggestions offered by graduate students. Detailed information is listed on the GSA Facebook page.
GSA Vice President of Communications and Records Ester Trujillo relayed student concerns to the MTD Board. Graduate students suggested actionable changes to the plan rather than requesting MTD not cut weekend service to the 24x – UCSB/Downtown Express line. She expressed to the MTD board of directors that approximately 79 percent of graduate students who responded the survey indicated that they use the 24x on the weekend. Most notably, many graduate students expressed concerns about not being able to get to the UCSB campus for weekend work, including lab work and research or writing on the weekend. Graduate students often depend on bus lines to get to UCSB and to get home after work and classes.
Many graduate students opt not to purchase a vehicle to keep their cost of living down. Many graduate students live on a $18k-$22k salary/stipend each year. The survey also revealed that many graduate students cannot afford the costs of living closer to the UCSB campus and must commute from downtown Santa Barbara where cheaper housing options are available. Students are concerned that there are no other alternative bus lines to get to downtown Santa Barbara in a timely fashion. Line 11- Hollister/Goleta Line takes twice the time to get from the transit center to the UCSB campus than the 24x – UCSB Express. Another concern students had is that Line 24x is frequently full, especially during rush hours but also including weekends, therefore line 24x is not a good candidate for service reduction. Additionally, many students who live in Isla Vista or Goleta use the 24x for transport to recreational and consumer activities downtown on the weekends.
Graduate students also provided some suggestions for MTD that I presented at Transit Talk. Students’ top request to not eliminate the 24x and many actually insisted service to the 24x be increased during the summer due to an influx of Education First students residing in IV. MTD has conceded that service will be increased to the 24x because of these reasons beginning in August, however service reductions may affect these increases and they may be short-lived.
Graduate students suggested MTD re-route remaining bus lines, if there are cuts, so that lines 24x or 11 go further into Ellwood to make up for the reductions to lines 23 and 25. Students also suggested collapsing overlapping lines into one line to reduce costs. Particularly of interests was the idea of combining Line 12x – Goleta Express with the 24x- UCSB Express and adding the stops made in Goleta by the 12x to the 24x’s route.
Graduate students also suggested increasing service during rush hours and reducing service during non-impacted hours. Students indicated that rush hours on the 24x are between 7 to 10 a.m. and 4 to 8 p.m. Several graduate students suggested the possibility of severing bus ticket fee deals between UCSB graduate students and MTD if they eliminate vital bus lines and others also suggested that the university become more involved in advocating for its student population.
At the Transit Talk meeting, the board of directors indicated that SB MTD receives 20 percent of its funding from the Federal Government. This money amounts to $4.6 million for the upcoming year. The money is being held from cities throughout California because the state passed a law allowing labor unions to challenge the provisions of their pensions. This law is called PEPRA - Public Employees Pension Reform Act. According to the MTD board, the federal government is holding money from transit departments throughout the state of California because transit unions have not come to an agreement. The U.S. Department of Labor reviews cases on an individual basis and is yet to review SB MTD’s funds requests. It is this fund shortage that they are preparing for in the event that of a need for service reduction.
MTD is preparing to carry out a reduction plan called Option A, which can be seen here online: http://www.sbmtd.gov/download/news-and-alerts/20130627-DrasticCuts/TransitTalkPackage.pdf
SB MTD has requested that interested parties contact Ann Comer (Comer.Ann@dol.gov) of the US Department of Labor to request that the federal money be released to MTD as soon as possible.
Community activists are also starting conversations about MTD employees rights to object to pension payment increases and decreases.
MTD plans to have three more meetings to discuss their plans, one in Goleta, one in Santa Barbara, and one in Carpinteria. GSA encourages graduate students to attend the MTD meeting in Goleta and voice their concerns directly to the board on Aug. 13 at 2 p.m. in the Goleta Valley Community Center located at 5679 Hollister Ave.