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he Health Sciences Campus bus is popular with
Normaltown residents. Maybe too popular.
Since the University of Georgia started offering
the free service, Athens Transit has lost 23,000 rid
ers from its Nos. 5 and 7 buses, which run down
Prince Avenue. Combined with other factors, like student apart
ment complexes that offer free shuttles to downtown and cam
pus, Athens-Clarke County buses are running on fiscal fumes.
The ability to hop on a campus bus for free is a nice perk
for students, UGA employees and non-UGA-affiliated residents
alike, and both services take thousands of cars off the streets
every day. But partly as a result of UGA Campus Transit's suc
cess in the limited area it serves, Athens Transit is facing more
cutbacks and fare hikes down the road.
UGA Up, Athens Transit Down
With 11 million annual riders, UGA Campus Transit is the
second-largest mass transit system in Georgia behind MARTA.
Another 1.7 million riders are expected to board Athens Transit
buses this year. While Campus Transit continues to grow,
Athens Transit ridership has dropped from a peak of more than
1.8 million riders in 2011. Overall, UGA ridership on Athens
Transit is down by 50,000 trips this year.
"We've lost a lot of UGA trips because of the all the private
vans out there from the apartment complexes," Athens Transit
Director Butch McDuffie says. "We're losing ridership because
the university is providing free service to other parts of the
community."
The apartment shuttles, in particular, astound McDuffie, who
notes that students living off-campus are already supporting
Athens Transit with the taxes embedded in their rents, as well
as supporting Campus Transit through student fees, although
he acknowledges that the shuttles may be more convenient.
Except for a handful off College Station Road, Campus Transit
does not serve off-campus apartment complexes; Athens Transit
does but is focused more on low-income neighborhoods.
McDuffie says he's not laying any blame on UGA. The two
systems coordinate and cooperate as best they can, and UGA is
a major source of funding for Athens Transit.
"We have a need to move students between the two cam
puses," Campus Transit System Manager Ron Hamlin says. "The
initial indications we got was that there would be no impact
or minimal impact... We're trying to avoid any potential issues
with duplication of services."
Even when ridership was higher, Athens Transit faced cuts.
Local taxes make up $1.7 million of its $5.7 million operating
budget this year, down more than $1 million from five years
ago. Federal grants for capital expenses like new buses and bus
shelters are down. The Athens-Clarke County Commission has
raised adult fares (children, seniors, the disabled and people
who buy multi-ride passes pay less) three times in nine years,
from $1 in 2005 to $1.25 in 2009 to $1.50 in 2012 to $1.60
this year.
Under former Mayor Heidi Davison, fares went up to pay
for new services like Saturday and night buses. But the more
recent hikes have merely served to avoid even more severe
cuts. Mayor Nancy Denson, citing poor ridership numbers, has
twice proposed eliminating bus service after 6 p.m., but com
missioners, seeing it as essential for earless workers, settled
for fare hikes and cutting back service by only one hour, to 10
p.m.
The Link, rural vans that shuttled people in far-flung areas
to bus stops, has already stalled due to lack of ridership.
Unless a fare hike is approved, McDuffie says he'll be forced
to recommend more cuts???maybe gameday shuttles, maybe
service to the little-used park-and-ride lot on Oconee Street,
maybe night buses again. The alternatives are a bigger con
tribution from taxpayers or another fare increase. Farebox
revenue is down to 26 percent this year, below the 35 percent
required by ACC policy.
"Our job is to try to run this operation like a business,"
McDuffie says. "You try not to pit neighborhood against neigh
borhood, day against night, things like that, but you still need
to look at your cost recovery."
A public hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19 at
the Multimodal Center. Options include a 10, 15 or 20 cent fare
hike, as well as a 10, 15 or 25 cent transfer fee. After the hear
ing, McDuffie will make a recommendation to the commission,
which will take comment again and discuss it Thursday, Nov.
21, then vote Tuesday, Dec. 3.
The reason he's doing it now, rather than as part of the
budget process this spring, is because ACC and UGA are about
to negotiate a new contract before the end of the year. Under
an agreement between the local government and the univer
sity, UGA pays ACC every time a student or employee swipes
his UGACard to board Athens Transit. The contract will bring in
about $1.3 million this year. When the commission decides to
raise fares as part of the county budget approved each June,
though, ACC loses out because the amount per ride has already
been settled based on the previous year's lower fare.
Other Ways to Pay
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Arch, student transpor
tation and employee parking fees cover the $7.5 million annu
ally needed to run UGA's 10 routes. Many run several times an
hour and 24 hours a day when school is in session???something
Athens Transit can't do because it's serving a less dense, more
spread-out population, McDuffie says.
For those lucky enough to live near South Milledge or Prince
avenues, Athens Transit fare hikes or cutbacks won't matter. A
free UGA bus will come along every few minutes to take them
downtown.
"My concern is the folks who increasingly need ACC transit
and can't use UGA transit are the ones who end up paying,"
says Elliott Caldwell, president of the alternative transportation
group BikeAthens.
As UGA expands, the dilemma is not going away. When the
new veterinary teaching hospital opens on College Station
Road in a couple of years, Campus Transit will run there, too.
"We're still in the planning stages on that one," Hamlin
says. "We don't know if we'll be operating open doors."
That's a reference to UGA's policy of letting anyone board
for free. It's simply not worth the trouble to check UGACards
and take fares from anyone without one, he says, and it doesn't
cost UGA anything to let a townie onboard.
Officials in Clemson, SC, discovered the same thing.
Eighteen years ago, city and Clemson University officials
decided to scrap a campus van service and start a real bus sys
tem that would serve both students and city residents. It now
6 FLAGP0LE.C0M ??? NOVEMBER 13, 2013
KELLY HART