Discussion over public transit continued to dominate at Monday night’s City Council meeting. The council met before a packed room to discuss amendments to the budget and voted to pass the budget for the next fiscal year, which will start Oct. 1.
The City Council approved fare increases from $1 to $1.50 for regular fares and increased half-fare rates from 50 cents to 75 cents, to be effective Oct. 1. Included in these fare increases is the elimination of half-fare eligibility for riders over 18.
Semester passes for students will also go from $60 to $100, effective Oct. 1. Students can still buy the pass at the current rate until Oct. 1.
While City Manager Mike Matthes’ original proposed budget included cutting bus services on Thursday and Friday evenings starting at 6:25 p.m. and each route’s last bus trip on Saturdays, those cuts were not passed. Instead, Thursday and Friday routes will end at 9:30 p.m. and there will be no cuts to Saturday bus services.
Graduate student Brittany Perrin, a student representative on the new task force implemented to improve the transit system, is wary of these increases.
“If we are going to depend on the students to fund the system, we need to take their considerations seriously,” Perrin said.
Perrin said she feels the money from the increased fares should be used to market better to students.
“The routes on campus are there, but we need to make students better aware of opportunities to get around off campus,” Perrin said.
Perrin said she thinks changes can be made to increase student ridership.
“If students are familiar and comfortable with the bus service, ridership will increase,” said Perrin.
The Reserve’s community manager Matthew Colgin spoke on behalf of the Reserve and Campus Lodge apartment complexes regarding the cuts of their evening service at the last council meeting.
Colgin said his complexes have collected 400 signatures from students to urge the council to reconsider their cuts to these services. The city voted down the Reserve’s initial proposal at the last Council meeting. Colgin said he thought the Reserve was fully funding the city’s expense to provide service to its complex.
Mayor Bob McDavid said he disagreed with the assessment that the transit costs were fully funded by the apartment complexes, citing a difference in the way calculations were made.
McDavid said he wants to provide student bus services, but it can’t be done at the current cost.
“College students make Columbia,” McDavid said. “But we can’t continue to provide service for 15 cents a ride.”
But McDavid is optimistic about the prospects of revamping the system in the future.
“We have the ability to give the college students a service that they are going to want to use all the time.”
Sophomore Jessica Burris, a resident of the Log Hill Run apartment complex, chose to attend Monday’s meeting because of proposed cuts to the complex’s bus service.
“I am on a tight budget, so this is important to me,” said Burris.
Burris was encouraged to come to meeting by her apartment complex owner and was disappointed more students didn’t take the advice.
“I was expecting more students to care about it, but I guess they have other priorities,” Burris said.
The Council also voted to retain paratransit fees at $4 per roundtrip rather than pass the proposed increase to $6 a ride. This resolution was met with approval by several of those who spoke at the meeting.
Council also approved maintaining the current requirements for half-fare eligibility, instead of changing the definition to one that would have left many citizens ineligible.
Matthes also brought up his concerns that fire department and police pension costs are too steep. This concern is one he said is not in the current budget, but will need to be addressed in the near future.
