WRTA plans to cut Saturday service

Bus service cutbacks mean trouble for job holders, riders say.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Suspension of Saturday bus service and cancellations of trips on various daily Western Reserve Transit Authority routes will be a hardship for riders and will cost some their jobs, riders said Monday afternoon as they waited to board their buses at Federal Station.

Because of budgetary constraints, WRTA plans to eliminate its Saturday bus service for the first time in its 36-year history, at least temporarily, after this weekend, the authority announced Monday.

The suspension of Saturday service was announced together with abolition of certain trips on several authority routes beginning next week. The authority does not operate Sundays and holidays.

Although notices of the cuts were posted and handed out to passengers Monday at Federal Station, the authority’s downtown Youngstown transit hub, Mike Bosela, president of the authority’s board of trustees, said no cuts can actually occur without the approval of the trustees.

The board will have a public meeting at 3 p.m. Thursday in the authority’s offices at 604 Mahoning Ave. to consider the cuts.

Rider reactions

“I can’t stand that because that’s inconveniencing me going to work,” on Saturdays, said Tanesha Davis of Youngstown. Davis rides the Mosier or Belmont Avenue buses from her North Side residence to Federal Station, and then the Market Street bus for the trip to her job at the Infocision call center on Southern Boulevard in Boardman.

The thinning out of the weekday trip schedule will likely force her to leave home two hours earlier than she does today to arrive at work on time, she said.

Davis said her employer requires her to work Saturdays, and she will try to ride to and from work that day with a co-worker. “If I can’t get to work on Saturdays and I have to keep calling off on Saturdays, they’re going to fire me,” she said.

Next year, Davis’ problem will be compounded because Infocision will move its Boardman call center to Western Reserve Road, which is beyond the WRTA service area. The cutbacks in weekday trips also will make it more difficult for Davis to get to her evening classes at Youngstown State University, she said. The elimination of evening bus service earlier this year forces Davis to walk home from YSU.

Another North Sider, Ashley Williams, who recently returned here from Oklahoma and is unemployed, said the bus schedule reduction will force her to awaken three hours earlier to attend General Educational Development classes at Choffin Career Center on Wood Street or walk there from home.

Williams, who does not drive, said the cutbacks will limit her employment opportunities.

Adding time to commute

Don Myers, a machinist who rides WRTA daily from his Struthers home to his Salt Springs Road workplace, said the cutbacks on the Steel Street route will inconvenience workers who ride buses to Infocision’s Austintown call center. Myers said the cutbacks will force him to begin his commute to work 21⁄2 hours earlier than he does today.

“A lot of people just don’t have the financial means right now to afford an automobile,” Myers observed. “People are going to lose their jobs, and jobs are too hard to come by now,” he added. The suspension of Saturday service will also inconvenience shoppers who rely on it, he added.

“We’re facing some tough decisions. We cannot operate at a deficit,” Bosela said. “We have to look at trying to preserve the budget,” he added. WRTA staff has proposed elimination of Saturday service as a temporary solution to the authority’s budget crisis, Bosela added.

Rising costs

The authority also faces escalating fuel, bus insurance and workers’ compensation premium costs, said Marianne Vaughn, authority treasurer. The authority spent about $500,000 on fuel last year, and projects to spend about $550,000 on it this year, Vaughn said. If it hadn’t cut service this year, fuel costs would have escalated to nearly $1 million this year, she added.

“We’re only looking at this, hopefully, as a temporary cut, and we’re looking to save about $350,000 from now until year’s end,” by suspending Saturday service, Vaughn said.

WRTA was forced this spring to eliminate evening and Warren bus runs due to federal and state funding cuts, Bosela noted.

“We hoped, when we made the cuts in April, that that would be enough for the year, but we’re still running at a deficit, so we need to make additional cuts to bring our budget in line,” Vaughn said.

This round of cuts is expected to result in the layoff of five to seven staff members, including drivers, a mechanic and a person who cleans and fuels buses, Vaughn said. The April cuts resulted in the layoff of 10 drivers and two office staff members. WRTA now employs 64 people, including 51 drivers.

Saturday is the authority’s lightest ridership day, generating only about 6.8 percent of the authority’s $9,000 in weekly fare-box revenue. The authority transports about 1,900 people each Saturday; 3,500 daily on weekdays.

“As a user, I feel personally frustrated and disappointed and anxious about the future, but I always remain hopeful,” said Bosela, who is blind and regularly rides the authority’s buses.