End of Saturday bus service highlights WRTA’s troubles

Although the public wasn’t given a chance to comment about the decision by the Western Reserve Transit Authority to curtail Saturday service, we doubt there was anything that could have been said to reverse the decision.

That’s because the WRTA needs at least $2 million to make it fiscally sound, and it has no source of revenue to make up the budget shortfall.

But it would have been an act of kindness on the part of the authority’s board of trustees to let the people be heard on how the elimination of Saturday service, cuts in routes and the end of night service instituted a couple of months ago have affected their lives.

Missing opportunity

There are many residents in the region whose sole mode of transportation is public bus service, and the last thing they want to be told is that there is no opportunity for them to be heard at the meeting — it was held Aug. 30 on short notice — during which decisions affecting them were made.

The public will have the opportunity this month to talk about the importance and necessity of bus service, day and night, and while residents are encouraged to participate, they should also give serious thought to attending the meetings of the Mahoning County commissioners. Why? Because commissioners Anthony Traficanti, David Ludt and John McNally may well hold the key to the WRTA’s future financial viability.

Although state Sens. John Boccieri, D-New Middletown, and Capri Cafaro, D-Liberty Township, are pursuing state and federal funding sources, there is a problem they have to overcome: Most of the money for local transit authorities can only be used for capital improvements or rolling stock and cannot be earmarked for operational expenses.

Local entities are expected to generate their own revenue for operating bus service.

Many transit authorities have countywide or metropolitanwide tax levies, but not the WRTA. Only city of Youngstown residents pay the 5 mills property tax, which generates $2.5 million a year.

“We’ve always talked about being poor,” said James Ferraro, the authority’s executive director, said during the Aug. 30 meeting. “We were poor. Now we’re really poor.”

Looking for answers

What’s the answer? Obviously, cooperation with other public transportation services in the region could benefit all of them, but short of the creation of one huge bus company, the WRTA must find other sources of revenue to pay for its operation.

Ferraro and members of the board of trustees believe a countywide sales tax of 0.25 percent would generate about $7.5 million a year. They want the commissioners to consider placing a sales tax issue before county voters in 2008.

After all, while a majority of the people who use the WRTA buses live in the city, many have jobs in the suburbs. Those suburban companies depend on this labor pool.

The reality is that the WRTA isn’t just a city of Youngstown service, and as the transit authority’s budget shows, city residents are unable to bear the entire burden.

Add to that cuts in state and federal funding for public transportation and the bottom line becomes clear: The future of the WRTA will continue to be iffy, at best, unless all Mahoning County residents become stakeholders.