Following an examination by the Laketran Board of Trustees on what it would cost to reinstitute services cut by last year’s financial recovery plan, it became all but obvious that buses would not be back on county roads past 7 p.m. on weeknights or seen at all on Saturdays in the near or even distant future.

The staff presented the board with multiple tables and estimate groupings on how much money would be needed for the different options that would have each offered some semblance of services that were around before last April. For an agency that just balanced its budget and is trying to right the ship, the costs weren’t feasible. Not even the scenario in which weeknight buses could run for an additional hour would work.

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-- Brandon C. Baker

Photo: Jeff Forman

“Why is Laketran buying new fareboxes? They can’t even run buses on Saturdays!”

It’s a sentiment I’ve seen on this Web site and one you’ve probably heard on the bus, if you ride it. It’s not just related to the fareboxes, though. People say this almost every time Laketran makes a move, be it obtaining federal grants, buying new buses with said grants, updating its scheduling system or announcing that it is nearing a balanced budget.

The problem is how misinformed those statements are.

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Mark Schneider appears to be first up to bat.

Not at Progressive Field, but for Laketran and its ongoing mission to receive additional state funding for operations. State Rep. Schneider, D-Mentor, has introduced an amendment to the general revenue portion of Gov. Ted Strickland’s 2010-11 budget proposal that would provide an additional $9.2 million to the $13.3 million the governor wants to collectively allot to public transit systems for the next fiscal year.

It’s an important development for the agency and its riders, even if the amendment doesn’t get picked up. That’s because they’ve been reaching out to state legislators to say that the funding Laketran receives — $613,028 this year — pales in comparison to what it got in 2001, more than $1.1 million.

That he would even offer up the amendment should show Laketran officials, and more importantly taxpaying riders, that the grassroots concept may be catching some steam. What’s more, the first-term state rep. is asking Laketran leaders to contact the heads of transit systems in places like Akron, Kent, Youngstown to try to influence them to have their riders send postcards, letters and e-mails to legislators. Why? Because those systems are struggling just like Laketran.

How did Schneider get involved? He says he’s been talking to General Manager Raymond Jurkowski and board member Donna McNamee about the matter for nearly two years. Schneider advised them to come to Columbus last month to provide testimony for the State House’s Subcommittee on Transportation and Justice, and arm of the Finance Committee. They told House members about the quagmire decreasing funding has created when coupled with sagging sales tax receipts hurt by the economy. It opened eyes.

“They were astounded to learn the hits that transit has taken,” McNamee recalled last week at one of the agency’s public hearings on fare increases and service cuts. “They looked like deer in headlights.

“Because a legislator of the House or Senate can only be there for eight years, they did not realize that the cuts in the budget to public transportation were not just another piece of the overall budget cuts and the result of a bad economy.”

McNamee went on to say that Schneider’s action is just one of many steps. Jurkowski added that the same emotional stories told to the agency by customers should be reiterated tenfold to state decision makers.

The odds are probably long if people expect the amendment to make a difference this year. Laketran’s board votes on the financial recovery package May 11, but the final state budget probably won’t be decided until June.

Still, the future can be affected. You know, like July 2010, when Laketran is scheduled to boost fares even more.

Schneider seems to understand the importance of public transportation. Users should be thanking him, but also encouraging his colleagues to do the same. State Rep. Lorraine M. Fende, D-Willowick, and state Sen. Tim Grendell, R-Chester Township, are scheduled to join Schneider in a meeting with Jurkowski. We’ll see what develops from that gathering.

-- Brandon C. Baker

Photo: Jeff Forman

Any questions asked in this post were answered this week.

People are vexed, fuming and have had it up to here.

One woman even called Laketran’s financial recovery plan the “degradation of society.”

They’re hot because the public transportation system they partially fund through a levy wants to raise fares for the second consecutive year, and slash several services at the same time. Both sides of the battle have merit. Laketran has received a 44 percent decrease in state funding since the onset of this decade.

The agency also fights off the stigma that the $3.6 million it got from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act can be used for operating expenses. Instead, it can be spent only on capital projects, like purchasing buses, vans and other equipment.

However, the riders have valid points, too. The agency wants to cut Saturday service altogether, along with weekday service after 7 p.m. Most of Laketran’s customers seem to understand that declining state and federal aid, along with low sales tax revenue brought on by the recession, have put the system in a tough spot. Still, they believe a resolution could be met that helps Laketran fight the storm, but doesn’t completely alter their own schedules. They fear being unable to get to work on Saturdays, losing the ability to go shopping on the weekend, or even worse, getting to dialysis and other medical appointments.

“I know (Laketran) is in a jammer, there’s no doubt in my mind, but some of these people need help,” Barry Feathers, a blind Willoughby resident who takes Laketran to his concession-stand job at the Lake County Common Pleas Court in Painesville., said at the hearing Tuesday in Mentor.

“I like the job, but if you knew what I was making, you’d think I was crazy or just wasting time,” he said. “I do like the people I meet, and I know I’m not the only one, so I’m hoping something can be done ... I may be selfish, but I want to go to work.”

There were several others who spoke and had this in common with Barry: They have disabilities, so they enjoy using a transit system that’s in touch with their needs. If fares continue rising, they worry that their means of livelihood, health and recreation will be threatened.

Organizations like the Lake County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities and the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services board were well-represented and voiced similar concerns.

As pointed out in this story, though, the Mentor hearing briefly turned ugly when commuters and disabled users of Dial-a-Ride began lobbying for Laketran to apply higher increases to services used more by the other group. That turned the event into a “we deserve it more” party. General Manager Raymond Jurkowski and Board President J. Terrell Dillard quickly tapered that talk, declaring that “we’re all in this together.”

It will be interesting to see if this continues tonight in Painesville. Since Laketran’s goals going into the hearings were to help the constituency understand the economic problem and convince them to petition legislators to better fund public transit systems, officials can’t be pleased with that type of bickering.

It’s OK and well within riders’ rights to suggest that Laketran officials might not be doing everything in its power to prevent these cuts. But trying to take service away from other segments of the agency’s ridership won’t accomplish much. Tightening up routes, staff cuts and half-day service on Saturdays, as hearing attendees have suggested, might all be better options that could save some money and not pit riders against one another.

-- Brandon C. Baker

Photo: Jeff Forman