Waiting 15 minutes for a bus may not be long, but as wait times increase during 2008, some bus riders may find their mass transportation options not as convenient as before. Because of budgeting difficulties, the Capital Area Transit System Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution that will save CATS $343,000 in operational cost, at the expense of a 1 percent overall reduction of service. “It all goes down to money,” said John Jackson, CATS Board member. “What we’re trying to do is match the service on the street with the amount of money we get. We do our best to add up all [the money] coming in and say, ‘OK, we can put ‘x’ number of hours of service on the street.'” John Denman, CEO of CATS, said the changes will not effect the geographic area the bus routes currently cover, nor will they decrease the span of time when the buses run. The number of buses on some routes will decrease and the frequency of stops will decrease, causing in increase in headway – the time people wait between buses at a stop. “While this service change is in a direction we would not like for it to be, the overall impact is not that bad,” Jackson said. Students who use CATS to get to campus should not be affected by the changes. Areas near campus have generally been left the same. The downtown trolley, Foster, Fairfield, Harding, Sherwood and Siegen and Airline routes will all see decreases in the number of buses running on the route. Changes will start Jan. 1, 2008. The CATS Board of Commissioners passed the changes as the best alternative to other proposed cuts. The Board considered two other plans – one cutting service by 13 percent, the other by 5 percent. “No change is positive, and there are going to be people affected by this,” said Deborah Roe, CATS Board member. “But I thought we were going to be looking at changes on twenty routes.”
—-Contact Nicholas Persac at [email protected]