Sacramento buses, rail face more budget squeezes
Sacramento buses, rail face more budget squeezes
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2469455.html
By Tony Bizjak
tbizjak@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Jan. 18, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
Last Modified: Monday, Jan. 18, 2010 - 8:33 am
It's a harsh winter for bus companies and their riders.
Over at the state Capitol, a governor low on cash is proposing dropping all funding to transit agencies around the state.
The Senate budget committee will discuss Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans Thursday in what could be an emotional hearing.
Meanwhile, in North Sacramento, the local bus and rail district, Regional Transit, is testing what some say is a desperate measure to put a few more dollars into its depleted coffers.
For the past two weeks, RT has been charging light-rail riders $1 to park at three station lots: Watt/I-80, Watt/I-80 West and Roseville Road.
Until this month, all RT parking lots had been free.
If the experiment works, the RT board will face an emotional debate of its own later this year: Should it charge parking fees at other light-rail station lots?
The last time the question came up last year, the RT board was bitterly divided.
Sacramento City Council member Steve Cohn was all for charging drivers. There's no such thing as free parking, he said. Those lots cost money to build and maintain, so people should pay.
But Folsom's Andy Morin and Rancho Cordova's Dave Sander opposed the idea, saying it discriminates against people who live farther away from stations.
"We are hurting ourself politically," Sander said.
There's also the question of whether it will cause some drivers to jam nearby residential or business areas by parking there instead.
The board ultimately compromised on the three-station experiment.
Two weeks in, RT spokeswoman Alane Masui said, it's going well.
Most regular riders have bought $15 monthly passes rather than have to dig a dollar out of their wallet or purse each day for the ticket machine.
But a statistical mystery has popped up: Masui said the agency has sold 1,151 monthly passes at the three lots.
That's 20 percent more parkers than RT car counts showed at those lots before the fees were put in place.
Officials are scratching their heads.
RT's Masui said it's possible some parking spots are doing double duty, handling morning parkers, who then leave and make room for a second set of evening parkers.
Masui said it also appears some people are buying two passes for two family cars.
Trains, too
The governor's proposed budget also has train people concerned. Officials with the CapitolCorridor train system, which runs from Auburn, through Roseville, Sacramento and Davis, and into the Bay Area, say their annual state funding will be merged into the state's general fund, where it could get squished in the annual free-for-all for funding scraps.