Greensboro has done a good job of making its city buses run on time, but making them run on budget has been another matter.

Ridership is up — the city may reach its goal of four million riders sooner than the 2008 target date. But rising operating costs, most notably the price of fuel, has city officials concerned about how the Greensboro Transit Authority will handle the increased number of riders.

The authority posted a deficit of $616,875, or 5.5 percent, on a total budget of $11.3 million in 2005-’06.

City Council member Sandy Carmany put it bluntly: “Additional services and rising costs necessitate more funding.”

A seven-year freeze in fares hasn’t helped matters any. So the majority of that funding will come from federal, state, and local governments, from which GTA has received the majority of its funding. A recent John Locke Foundation report by UNC Charlotte professor David Hartgen said that Greensboro is “increasing its dependence on government sources relative to ridership support.”

The report recommends that the city implement a fare policy that balances taxpayer and rider responsibility while “setting caps on government support.”

Are city leaders listening? They realize something needs to be done.

“What we discovered is GTA is a very successful transit system,” said Meredith Zimmerman, chair of the GTA board and task force member. However, Zimmerman said, there are “near- and long-term budget challenges.”

There has been a 15 percent increase in the number of riders over the last three years, Zimmerman said. In 2004-2005, GTA transported 2.6 million riders, while projected ridership for 2005-2006 is 3.1 million.

“We have overcrowded buses with people standing in the aisles,” Zimmerman said.

But the increased demand for services isn’t reason enough for the city to examine its transportation system. Carmany stressed environmental factors.

“Vehicle emissions will be the source of over half the pollutants in our region,” she said. “Increasing transit ridership and decreasing traffic congestion is the number one strategy developed…to address our air pollution concerns.”

She also said a strong transportation system was vital to Greensboro’s economic success. Companies will not move to Greensboro because of high levels of particulate matter in the city’s air, she said. “Poor air quality is harming our economy as well as our health,” Carmany said.

Complicating matters, though, is the fact that GTA also operates a
Specialized Community Area Transportation service for people with disabilities. SCAT riders pay $2 per trip in fares. But another option allows for a $35 monthly pass that allows unlimited rides.

City Council member Florence Gatten, also a member of the GTA task force, has acknowledged that SCAT riders have abused the monthly pass, with riders taking as many as 97 trips per month.

The task force recommends that fixed route base fares for regular riders, at one dollar per trip, be raised 10 cents per year for the next three fiscal years, topping out at $1.30 for fiscal 2008-2009.

SCAT riders would face increases as well. The task force recommended that SCAT fares, at two dollars per trip, be increased 20 cents over the next three fiscal years, topping out at $2.60 in 2008-2009.

But the most controversial recommendation by the task force was to discontinue the unlimited monthly ride pass for SCAT riders. Discounted multi-ride passes would still be available, though. The price of a 10-trip pass, now $18, would rise by three dollars over the next three years, while a 40-trip pass would be raised immediately by $14 in 2006-2007 before increasing by five dollars per year until 2008-2009, when it would cost $80.

But the modest increase in fares for regular bus riders is being proposed along with an increase in services. The task force recommends increasing frequency of services from every 60 minutes to every 30 minutes to ease crowding at the top of the hour, a move that would require an additional $1.8 million in annual operating costs.

The task force also recommends adding a route to serve the south side of the city, which would require an extra $300,000 in annual operating costs.

But much of the operating shortfalls would be made up by Greensboro taxpayers with a 1.5-cent increase in the transit tax to cover the 2005-2006 budget shortfall and to fund future service needs. The transit tax would bring in about $3.1 million, while rider revenues will bring in $366,000.

Sam Hieb is a contributing editor of Carolina Journal.