Elk Grove Cuts Local Bus Service
Davis calls cuts 'bad policy' In a rare split vote, The Elk Grove City Council approved service cuts for the city's bus pro...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2009/07/elk-grove-cuts-local-bus-service.html
Davis calls cuts 'bad policy'
In a rare split vote, The Elk Grove City Council approved service cuts for the city's bus provider, E-Tran.
Faced with a projected $1.7 million deficit, the council voted 3-2 after deliberating the matter for close to an hour at last night's city council meeting. Voting in favor for the reductions were Mayor Pat Hume and council members Jim Cooper and Sophia Scherman. Council members Gary Davis and Steve Detrick voted against the cuts.
During their deliberations the council heard a presentation from city transit manager Steffani Fink would said that notwithstanding earlier cuts, the bus service faced "structural deficit' problems. in Additional Fink said the deficit was caused by the loss of $1.5 million in funding from federal, state and local sources.
To address the shortfall, Fink presented four options that ranged from draconian cuts that would have eliminated all weekend service to produce a balanced budget to options that would have maintained weekend service at reduced level but at a net loss.
Cooper said the problem needed to be dealt with now as he felt the economic picture for the city would continue to deteriorate. "We have to prioritize," he said.
Davis strongly objected to the option that was ultimately approved that significantly reduced weekend service and will provide discount taxi vouchers to disabled riders in lieu of specialized van service that is available during on weekdays.
"At some point you have to put a human perspective on it," Davis said of the cuts to service for disabled riders. "I think it is bad policy."
Davis also questioned the legality of the service cut and added "I thin it is discriminatory policy"
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Council Members Detrick and Davis were the only ones with any heart. Sophia totally abandoned her precious Senior Center. Guess the oldsters can just shuffle down the road in their walkers and wheelchairs. No more weekend service...no more holiday service. Taxi cab script for the disabled...Gary Davis said it right..."we just passed a discriminative resolution." Think I'll rent a wheel chair, call a cab that I won't be able to get into, and then file my ADA lawsuit and wait for the BIG SETTLEMENT CHECK ! ! !
I see EG dying a slow death. Little by little, services get cut, more foreclosures, more crime and soon, it will be slumburbia. It's near that now.
Cut EGPD... outr town does not need 200 cops.... they are guaranteed to be at a local restaurant instead of patrol!
EGPD has 126 cops, not 200. The same number of cops they have had for the last three years. There isn't any fat there, they are at the bone already.
Drop the ludicrous Sphere of Influence application. Elk Grove can't service the area it has grown into now...do we really need to expand out to Wilton and South to the Cosumnes River? What do they intend to tax? The Swainson hawks or the giant garter snakes??
YOU ARE WRONG SINCE ARNIE IS GOING TO TAKE EG MONEY... COPS MAY GET CUT! THERE GOES CHEVY"SBUSINESS!
Only in Elk Grove.
Think about this. One would presume that somebody who rides the bus doesn't have a car (set aside for a moment those who don't want a car).
The Elk Grove City Council evidently wants people to buy cars as they are handing out $500 coupons to buy cars.
e-Tran is running a deficit so "service must be cut". (Set aside for a moment the undesireability of luring people off the bus and into cars and remember that the EGCC nearly started a war with Regional Transit because they wanted to run the bus service themselves.)
So now at a time when government money is scarce and city provided services like e-Tran are running a deficit the EGCC "solution" is to hand out $500 bills on the condition we buy cars and then they cut the bus service so we can't get to where the cars are sold.
Only in Elk Grove
That's a solid point regarding $500 for a new car, because the whole point of this exercise is to sell more cars. That's a quarter million that the city claims is "revenue neutral" but it most certainly could have been used to offset transit cuts or something else that's constrained in our budget.
I'm an e-Tran rider to downtown Sacramento to catch the light rail to work and back. I am sure that the majority of express riders have a car or two or three of their own because the current level of service isn't sufficient to offset the need for one. I'm forced to own a car here because our bus services don't follow a10/10 rule (ten minute service and a 10 minute walk) or even 15/15...and light rail is thirty-seven years away. As it gets cut even more, the need for a car increases, a vicious cycle where transit is forever cast farther down the relevancy ladder.
Compulsory automobile ownership is a strong source of Elk Grovian indebtedness while new car sales drive the city's budget. I can see why our monies are being used to subsidize the selling of more cars.
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