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SamTrans paratransit fares rising on Thursday
MercuryNews.com
Bus riders with disabilities in San Mateo County will have to pay more to get around starting Thursday. The SamTrans paratransit fare will increase 17 percent, from $3 to $3.50. People with disabilities who cannot independently ride regular SamTrans buses can prearrange paratransit service through Redi-Wheels, or RediCoast on the coastside...The Lifeline fare will also rise from $1.50 to $1.75. The fare is available to low-income paratransit riders and is half off the regular price to ride...The service provides about 330,000 rides for people with disabilities each year...The district's board of directors approved the changes in September to help close a $28 million deficit. At the time, the board also cut general bus service by 7.5 percent, which went into effect in December, and raised base fares by 25 cents, which began in February.
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MTA to raise fares 6%
Los Angeles Times
Transit users will start paying more Thursday to ride Metrolink and bus, subway and light-rail systems operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is raising fares for the first time in two years. MTA officials say the increase — the third in 15 years — will help eliminate a deficit in the budget that pays for bus and rail operations. The authority is reducing the remaining gap by cutting staff, reorganizing the agency and employing other cost-saving measures...The deficit was caused by a decline in ridership, the loss of state funds and declines in revenue from two of the county's three transportation sales taxes — all factors driven by the economic recession.
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Bus cuts drive Americans back to cars
The Guardian
Just at the moment when the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill has generated two months of non-stop headlines about the dangers of oil dependency and the federal government in America finally has something of a platform to call for Americans to wean themselves off oil dependency, cities, counties and states across the US are decimating their public transit systems and forcing people...to return to their cars...Take Sacramento, California's capital city, for example. For three years now, aid to public transit systems across the state has been slashed by legislators. Now the dollar reductions are hitting home in a big way. In Sacramento, huge service cuts, designed to save the local transit system $12m, are now in effect. Twenty-six weekday bus routes have been entirely eliminated, along with many weekend routes. Late night light rail service has been ended, and earlier evening services slashed. From the peak of the boom times to now, Sacramento's public transit system has shrunk by about a third. The result? A major metropolitan area with no functional public transportation system for workers needing to get to and from jobs late at night or in the dawn hours of the morning.
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