As climate-change warriors filled the streets of Burlington last month to demand reductions in fossil-fuel pollution, Vermont’s largest public transit system touted its environmental benefits on social media.
“One full bus carries the same number of people as 60 cars,” Green Mountain Transit proclaimed on its Facebook page. On Twitter, GMT chirped that public transit reduces national carbon emissions by “37 MILLION metric tons annually.”
The September 20 rally was the most energetic display of environmentalism the Queen City has seen in years. But some participants drove home in cars, a reminder that, so far, the growing concern about global warming has not powered an increase in riders for GMT, whose fleet of blue-and-green buses offers an alternative to carbon-spewing autos.
GMT’s current ridership is down 13 percent from the system’s peak in 2012. That year, it logged 3 million trips, compared to 2.6 million for the fiscal year that ended in June. The public transit system operates city and commuter routes in the Champlain Valley, as well as in and around Stowe, Montpelier and Waitsfield, and is run by a 13-member board of commissioners representing four counties and eight municipalities.
The slack ridership is taking a financial toll. Over the past four years, the bus authority has reduced cash reserves from $2 million to $700,000 to balance its annual budget, which today is roughly $29 million.
The company must stop raiding reserves to pay the bills, said GMT’s interim general manager, Jon Moore, during an interview at the transit system’s headquarters in Burlington’s South End. “We can’t do it again, because those funds will be exhausted,” he said.
On Tuesday, the GMT finance board unanimously approved cuts to the current year’s budget that pare $68,000 from marketing and $169,000 from capital spending, which means canceling plans to purchase three new buses. The trims also included $109,000 in reduced staff costs; some open positions will be left vacant. The full board will have the final say on whether to approve the cuts at its regular meeting on Tuesday, October 15.
As the board formulates next year’s budget, for fiscal year 2021, cuts to bus service and to employee benefits could be on the table, officials said.
Just four months ago, GMT rolled out its NextGen Service Plan, an overhaul designed to attract more riders with new, streamlined routes offering bus service every 20 minutes. The regular fare rose from $1.25 to $1.50 — the first hike since 2005. Monthly fare cards dropped from $50 to $40 to incentivize frequent ridership. New mobile phone payment and bus tracking options were added.
It’s too early to analyze the full impact of the changes, but the initial numbers are disappointing. August ridership fell 4.5 percent from the prior year, and revenues slumped, too, according to Moore.
Most of the transit company’s cash comes from federal, state and participating local government funding. What customers pay amounts to a small share of the revenue pie, but it still matters.
In a budget memo, finance and grants director Nick Foss wrote that fare income has been lower than anticipated, which is just one of the fiscal challenges. Costs went over budget on bus parts and maintenance, workers’ comp, and consulting and legal fees.
GMT could face more legal bills in the coming months. Two Burlington families have filed complaints against GMT with the Vermont Human Rights Commission alleging racial bias after a driver ordered Burlington schoolchildren off a bus in May. The company denies the claims but terminated the driver for failing to follow protocols designed to deal with disruptive passengers. The driver filed a labor grievance and was reinstated in August.
As those problems were brewing, the board put GMT general manager Mark Sousa on paid suspension July 8. He resigned July 20, before his contract was up, and negotiated a separation agreement that cost about $47,000 in pay and benefits. Seven Days could not reach Sousa for comment.
Tom Chittenden, the GMT board chair, said confidentiality rules prevented him from revealing the reasons for Sousa’s departure. When asked whether the budget problems and handling of the bus-driver incident contributed, Chittenden replied that a number of factors were involved.
Moore was appointed interim general manager and is now navigating the budget problems, labor issues and bias complaints.
There are also infrastructure woes to worry about. For instance, outdated fare boxes break down daily. Hit a pothole, and one might stop working, said Moore. Hit another, and it might restart. At GMT headquarters last week, a jumble of broken fair boxes awaited repairs that often involve parts cannibalized from older machines. Fares go uncollected when the boxes stop working — one of the problems Foss cited in his budget memo.
The decision to put off the purchase of three conventional buses would not affect plans already in the works to add two electric buses, the first in GMT’s fleet. The buses should arrive later this month, Moore said.
The goal is to put them into service by the end of the year. That could be a challenge, though, because GMT has had trouble finding an electrician to install the bus-charging systems. “If you know anyone…” Moore quipped.
While the electric buses are part of a major initiative intended to appeal to environmentally conscious riders, it’s unclear whether they’ll attract their target audience.
“People do not make the connection between climate change and transportation,” said Julie Campoli of Burlington, the editor of the website Sustainable Transportation Vermont. “It’s a huge blind spot.”
It’s not just a local problem. Transit ridership was lackluster nationally during the last five years.
“Low gas prices and strong economies generally do have a negative impact on ridership, and that has been seen in Chittenden County, as well,” said Ross MacDonald, a public transit coordinator at the Vermont Agency of Transportation.
Surveys of the state’s public transit systems show that around 80 percent of users ride buses because they have to, MacDonald said. They can’t afford cars, or they can’t drive due to a disability.
Most transit experts agree that new strategies are needed to encourage a broader pool of people to ride. One way to do it, according to MacDonald and other transit planners: Implement new tools such as the Transit app, which GMT piloted over the summer and all state public transit systems will formally adopt this month.
At GMT’s downtown transit center in Burlington, riders had their own ideas for how to convince more people to take the bus.
Habibo Noor, an 18-year-old Burlington High School student, gave the Transit app a big thumbs-up as she waited for a bus to take her to the University Mall in South Burlington.
But others say even more frequent service than the NextGen schedule offers, and not an app, is the key to attracting riders. As she prepared to board for a shopping excursion at Target in South Burlington, Champlain College student Breanna Wright said she takes the bus only if she really “has to.” She grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., accustomed to buses that arrive every 10 minutes.
Consistent on-time performance is the key to attract riders, said Kira Cogger, a recent Saint Michael’s College grad who was waiting for a bus to Essex Junction, where she works as a pharmacy tech. People have busy schedules and “don’t want to be sitting in a bus stop.”
This fall, GMT will work with the University of Vermont and the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission to survey the public and organize focus groups designed to increase commuter use of the bus service.
No one debates that increased ridership would reduce traffic, particularly in Chittenden County, home to many of Vermont’s busiest roads. But environmentalists in particular need to help the cause by using mass transit options and not just calling for more of them, suggested Rep. Curt McCormack (D-Burlington), chair of the Vermont House Transportation Committee. “Most of them don’t,” he said.
McCormack, on the other hand, does. He spoke via phone from Bennington last Friday during a statewide tour that he is making by bicycle and bus to visit each member of the House Transportation Committee to better understand local transportation problems.
McCormack said he pedaled hard that day to travel downhill in heavy headwinds and cold rain, but he still waxed enthusiastically about ideas to grow car-alternative transit, including the concept of free bus fares for all. The lost revenue would have to be made up somehow, McCormack said, but it might propel ridership — and discourage car trips. VTrans is researching the idea, he said.
“We need ridership to increase,” he said, “because you cannot convince people in the legislature to support more money for transit when ridership is declining.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Next Stop: Budget Cuts | Green Mountain Transit sputters along with lower ridership, legal woes and broken fare boxes”
Related Stories
Green Mountain Transit Searches for Cash — and Its ‘Soul’
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2019.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
Chittenden County needs a new tax on ride-hailing service providers (eg, Uber and Lyft) to provide a new revenue stream that will allow CCTA to buy down their fares. $2 new tax on every ride seems appropriate; or perhaps $1.50 plus $0.15 for each mile.
They’re are two main issues that CCTA must confront if it wants to reverse the ridership trends:
1) Fares are not competitive with driving for car-owners; given Vermont’s very high rate of car ownership and ample free/low-cost parking (when compared to urban areas) the economics for car-owners needs to become more favorable. You can’t expect people to get rid of their cars when owning one in this state is so cheap and easy (and Tim Ashe wants to waive emissions inspections!).
2) Timing/routes not convenient. Too much focus on intra-City transit when it would be more helpful (with a more favorable environmental impact) to focus on increasing frequency of long-haul I-89 routes. When I worked in Waterbury Village I tried taking the CCTA LINK Express from my apartment in downtown Burlington. However, the poor frequency did not justify the $8 roundtrip price tag when driving alone is so easy, cheap and convenient in Vermont.
Prudent financial management will also be integral to any turnaround. That’s why it’s important any new revenue is used to buy down fare prices rather than absorbed in ridiculous G&A line items like a “marketing” budget. That sounds like Burlington Electric Department–inefficient, poorly-managed quasi-governmental bureaucracy!! Need LEAN management and cost sequestrations at CCTA.
Public transportation should be free.
This is interesting that the one common complaint I hear from my friends who don’t have cars isn’t really mentioned here. They all across the board talk about that the buses are rarely on time. It’s incredibly hard to get to work and appointments when the bus you need to get there is consistently 15 or more minutes late. And if you don’t know the routes, it’s not easy to figure out which bus route goes where on their website. The google map link they have on the front of their site often defaults to walking directions instead of bus info – it’s a mess. I’m glad they’re going to be surveying folks, but I have to wonder if the people who work there actually use the buses themselves.
Want a problem?
Hire a liberal to run your city.
What a diaster.
Bus company needs to go out of business.
Taxpayer-financed subsidy getting old.
Truth be known: buses are a loser in small cities such as Burlington.
The BVT should read this book and then give me a buzz if they want this fixed.
Driving Excellence: Transform Your Organization’s Culture – And Achieve Revolution… https://www.amazon.com/dp/1401323979/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_zBONDbPH6FKFF
Some of the drivers are unbearably annoying as well and do not stop talking! It’s 7:00 in the morning!!
If they had fare-free busses ridership would go up without a doubt. A lot of people that are poor have a hard time with bus fare.
Public transportation should not be free, because it is incredibly expensive. It has to be a viable business if it is going to last, otherwise your good intentions leave people with no transportation. Which is probably coming. Subsidize poor riders, but don’t turn down fare income for moral reasons.
Hate to say it, but they should probably charge more realistic fares, especially considering every vehicle in the fleet that gets sent up & down Route 2 is going to die that same year.
The buses are too big. They are dangerous for the size of the streets in Burlington. And it is even worse with all the curb bump-outs and other changes to the already-narrow streets initiated under Miro Weinberger and Chapin Spencer (the St. Paul-Maple Street intersection problems previously detailed in Seven Days just one example of many).
Switching to smaller, narrower buses or going with large vans would seemingly solve not only the above problem but the problem of low ridership also. The buses are too big for the number of riders. It is a waste of $ and space.
Public transportation, health care, college, cell phones, housing, unarmed police, cable TV, child care, pizza, a high IQ, beautiful hair, beer, open borders, and sex are human rights!
2020 Progressive Party Platform
Ending the massive subsidies for private automobiles and trucks will level the playing field for public transportation. Fuel taxes pay for less than half the costs of maintaining roads and bridges. The rest comes from general fund taxes and property taxes. Construction and maintenance of free side street parking is another huge subsidy for cars. Not only does the public pay for this parking for private automobiles the space is exempt from property taxes. A sober look at all the subsidies given to private automobiles – making public transportation less competitive – is in order.
People like cars.
I’m with Curt McCormack that free ridership would be a boon. People would gripe less if they were getting the service for free. But I also think lack of timeliness is an issue. Trying to plan to get to to a PT session is easier for me because I get on the bus at the terminal. But the few times I’ve tried to get a bus away from the new transit center, it has never been on time. And like many folks in town, I don’t have a cell phone app to tell me when the bus is coming.
People do like to have their own cars, but some can’t afford them. To choose between having a car or having a nice place to live, good food, and decent clothes? Some have to make that choice.
I ride the bus a lot, since my car died.
I didn’t drive until I moved to Vermont, where it was obvious I needed a car to get by. Now I live in downtown Burlington, and that’s the only reason I can get by without a car – BUT I do need help from friends once in a while. There is only so much you can carry on a bus. Vermont, in its modern form, is made for cars.
I agree that most of the decision-makers are Not riding the buses! If the folks running GMT would ride the bus a few times a week, they might see what improvements are necessary.
As far as buses being on time – I was told by a long-time bus-driver that the speed limit used to be 30 mph. Now it’s 25 mph, BUT the stop-times (when the bus arrives at a stop) have not been adjusted! Someone truly gifted should work on the schedules. Those who train the new drivers should also be exceptionally good.
We do need public transit – trains, buses, whatever. We need people to walk and bike. [Hear any rumors about people needing more exercise?] Or should we just keep on texting and driving, and thinking that everyone else is in our way all day. Can we work together? Can we get out of our cars once in a while?
Burlington is one of the few parts of Vermont where life can be lived without owning a car.
I belong to Carshares, but I also take the bus a lot.
I agree with CHRIS. When it was CCTA, they did have a fleet of smaller busses that were mainly used for special Ed and handicapped people. They should see which routes have the least amount of riders and go with the smaller busses. That would only make sense…
GMT Buses fly through Winooski going 40-50 miles an hour in 25 mph zones.. They must ruin their mpg with such accelerations and go through brakes like candy with the braking they have to do. Sooner of later this speeding behavior is going to kill someone and the lawsuits may finish off GMT.