Public Hearings On JCT Fare Increase – Feb 12 and 14
Posted by Transit Action Network on February 11, 2013
Johnson County Transit is proposing a fare increase effective April 15, 2013. Public meetings are being held this week.
DATE and TIME:
Tuesday, February 12 from 7 am to 8 am Thursday, February 14 from 5: 30 pm to 6:30 pmLOCATION:
Sylvester Powell Community Center (meeting room C) 6200 Martway Mission, KS 66202Additional comments can be made through March 15 by:
Email: Comments@thejo.com Phone: 913-715-8255 to leave a recorded messageMail:
Proposed Fare increase Comments Johnson County Transit 1701 West 56 Highway Olathe, Kansas 66061 Proposed Fare Increases
Click to enlarge
Proposed cash fares increases are 50 cents for K-10 and 25 cents for most other routes.
There is an anomaly though because the proposed cash fare increase for Route 812/Jo Flex is $1.25, which is significantly more than the other fare increases. Low-income people living in HUD section 8 housing in Overland Park mainly use this route to get groceries, medicines and other basic needs. We discussed this route in our Title VI claim dealing with the service cuts. Johnson County does not classify this route as low-income but TAN disagrees. This fare increase appears to place a disproportionate burden on the low-income people who use this route.
Here are the percentage increases to the base cash fares.
K-10 has a 16.7% increase – JCT has identified the K-10 route as both a minority and low-income route
Most Jo routes have a 12.5% increase
Route 812/Jo Flex has a 125% increase
Equity – Although it is obvious that JCT is proposing that all the non K-10 routes have the same base fare of $2.25, we are concerned that this could create an Environmental Justice issue. We will have to see if the FTA decides that Route 812/Jo Flex is indeed a low-income route. Different modes of transit service may have different fares without being discriminatory. Route 812/Jo Flex mainly serves low-income people two days a week for 4 hours, so it hardly seems fair to increase their base fare 125% just to make it the same as the standard and commuter express routes for daily commuters. For riders of Route 812/Jo Flex over 60 years old, they can get relief from the high increase if they purchase a 10 ride reduced fare pass. However, younger low-income people will feel the full brunt of this increase.
Process - We wonder when public meetings will be held in the KCK or KCMO areas that JCT serves? How do riders or potential riders using a reverse commute and needing a northbound bus after 6:30 pm, when this meeting ends, get to KCK or KCMO using transit? We hope there was a public meeting in Lawrence. Inadequate public participation was the basis of our Title VI claim for the service cuts and we see similar problems with the process for the fare increase.
Fare Structure – We question the wisdom of continuing a fare structure under which very long morning / evening commuter trips from Gardner or Olathe via I-35 have the same fare as much shorter “errand” trips on local streets, such as the 75th Street – Quivira and Metcalf – Shawnee Mission Parkway routes. KCATA has two categories of routes — regular ($1.50 fare) and commuter (generally $3.00).
Loretta Jackson-Cowans said
The Johnson County Transit System is complete inadequate as it is and the way it’s ran now, raising their bus fare would be a complete injustice to all of us who, are in the low-Income bracket. The disabled, handicapped and the elderly who are on a fixed-income will especially be hit hard. Look, Johnson County Transit needs to severly improve their transit system in order for it to be worth any kind of fare increase at all. The ridiculously have many routes that, a bus will operate in the early morning hours and won’t be operating again for several hours later. Also, the ridiculous notion of operating a bus once on a route and that’s it for the day. The people who operate the Johnson County Transit System needs to look at how the KCATA operates it’s transit system and operate their bus system in a manner that, a person without a car can travel better. I’ve been riding the buses since,1988 and I’ve heard how the commuters view the Johnson County Transit System and they’ve said that, the Johnson County Transit System is a joke. Also, that they are so intended to keep out us poor people that, they make it to where if any of us poor people take a bus to anywhere in Johnson County we’d end up getting stranded. I’ve noticed that the discussion place for the proposed fare increase in at the address of: 6200 Martway in Mission, Ks which, by the way is a joke because no Johnson County bus operates on that street. And much like many of the bus routes in Johnson County, even if anyone could get there by bus, we’d have trouble getting back home since, Johnson County doesn’t believe in properly operating their own system. How can a poor person like me get to that meeting??? The answer is that “We Can’t”!!! No bus operates on or near that address. I’m not in favor of Johnson County Transit increasing their bus fare at all and I’d like to ask that, my e-mail be sent to the Johnson County Transit Authorities. This is just a horrible way of Johnson County Transit Authorties telling us poor, disabled and handicapped that, we aren’t wanted in their area because we’re not rich. This is just discrimination; ugly and heartless discrimination to which, the people that operate the Johnson County Transit System should truly be ashamed of themselves.