The valley will see consolidated bus routes and reduced services come September after Metro board members approved 10 percent in cuts to balance its scant budget last week. The Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District board members also declared a fiscal emergency and passed a two-year budget that relies heavily on reserves at their regular monthly meeting Friday, June 25.
Federal, state and local sources of money for mass transit are meager because of the prolonged recession, said Metro transportation planner Erich Friedrich.
“It’s completely out of control. Funding streams are just drying up,” Friedrich said. “The state is taking our money to try and balance its budget.”
Money from sales taxes is also slim, because people are buying less, he said.
Changes will include consolidated routes, longer waits for buses and fewer trips to the county’s more remote areas.
Cuts will mean changes for the University of California, Santa Cruz, Night Owl, which runs between the campus and downtown; routes from Santa Cruz and Watsonville; and service to Bonny Doon and the San Lorenzo Valley.
The final routes are not set in stone, as directors might make changes to service in Boulder Creek after passengers wrote in with proposed improvements that board members said they would look into. The changes would take effect in December, if approved.
“It’s not a very significant change for Scotts Valley this year,” said Metro board member Dene Bustichi, also a councilman for that city.
But Bustichi said the situation could get much worse.
“Next year, we’re going to have to deal with labor to try to get them to reduce wages or cut services drastically, probably by 30 percent,” he said.
“It’s a lose-lose. If we cut service 30 percent, we’ll have to lay off bus drivers, because there will be less routes.”
Starting Sept. 16, routes 31 and 32, which travel from Santa Cruz to Scotts Valley, will be merged. One bus will cover both routes. In the merge, seven route 31’s between 6:55 a.m. and 4:25 p.m. will be eliminated and two route 32 trips will be cut.
Friedrich said it was important to riders to preserve as much service as possible to Graham Hill Road.
“The highest ridership is during school hours, so we arranged the new routes by school time,” Friedrich said.
Metro will also take several route 35 buses, which travel up Highway 17 and exit on Mount Hermon Road, and turn them into 35A busses. The 35A route continues on Highway 17 to Granite Creek Road before turning down Scotts Valley Drive and heading to Boulder Creek.
“Because we’re reducing trips, we wanted to supplement service along Scotts Valley Drive so we changed many 35’s to 35A’s,” Friedrich said. “It takes longer but serves a greater area.”
In addition, a single 35A will be cut, the 10:45 a.m. bust from Boulder Creek to Santa Cruz.
Friedrich said the cuts have not been taken lightly.
“I started this job because I wanted to provide people with transportation, to be green, to get less cars on the roadway,” Friedrich said. “So to have to implement cuts like this is very difficult.”
