The public is encouraged to attend the City Council Transportation Committee meeting, Monday, August 25, at 4 PM, in the City Hall Conference Room, 4th Floor. The Clarksville Transit System staged a public hearing August 11 as part of its schedule rate review process. CTS has proposed to increase its base multi-trip prepaid bus fare, eliminate transfers entirely, end its service to Oak Grove’s Wal-Mart Supercenter complex and start-up a shuttle bus service for APSU. This plan had initial approval by the Transportation Committee.

The recent increase in fuel costs has affected the bus system, just as it has other functions of public service providers. Cost adjustments have to be made to offset and adapt to this new environment. However, as the average resident faces increasingly more stress in meeting their transportation needs, public transportation has seen increased ridership as people abandon their private vehicles in favor of the more economical bus system. Some augment their travel with CTS bus rides and shorter personal vehicle trips.

While Chattanooga and Nashville have taken this step, nowhere else in the nation is a public transit system contemplating ending transfers. It is rare for any trip within our community to be completed with a single bus ride. Residents in North Clarksville or out Madison Street, or Happy Hollow must transfer to a second bus to reach the St. Bethlehem area or Governor’s Square Mall or our new hospital complex, or just another part of our city. Want to go to the library, City Hall, the Public Library, a county commission meeting, a school board meeting or a city council meeting, see a movie, and use CTS- it’s going to require changing buses. What is now a $1.25 one-way expense would become a $2.00 expense and a $4.00 round trip cost for one adult. A family of four or five faces a massive increase, draining their meager minimum wage income even further. For such a family, a $5.00 one-way trip could become $10.00 one way, $20.00 round trip. Transfers are extensions of the original bus ride, not separate destinations in and of themselves. As such, they have not been priced as separate rides, and rightly so.

The socio-economic demographic of the targeted ridership for the CTS is least able to absorb this doubling of bus fares. Theirs is not the high disposal income bracket of our community. As the economy tightens up for all of us, many will find themselves having to adjust to this new reality and riding CTS buses will be part of that adjustment for many.

The increased costs of CTS certainly call for adjustments. However, CTS must be careful not “throw the baby out with the bath water,” as it were. Increase the price of a transfer, but don’t eliminate them. The riding public is not parking Infinitys’, Mercedes or Jags to ride CTS buses. Many don’t have personal cars and thus CTS service is their only transportation means. The aim should be to study other options which encourage more ridership, not discourage it.

Concerned citizenry are urged to make a priority to attend the Transportation Committee meeting. August 25th, 4 PM, City Hall Conference Room, City Hall, 1 Public Square. Your presence gives you voice. Your presence has impact. Let it be heard.

Editor’s Note: At an August 11 public hearing at the Clarksville Public Library, CTS, responding to customer input, presented a revised rate proposal that would implement an across the board fare increase of 25 cents and retain the present transfer system. That revised proposal will be before the City Council on August 25. The proposed changes would go into effect September 2.

[Show as slideshow]

The elimination of transfers translates to a de facto 75 cent increase in bus fare for riders who need to utilize two buses navigate across town or into adjoining residential neighborhoods.

For example, anyone living in the Peacher’s Mills or Cunnigham Loop areas who would be coming or going from a business on the northern parameter of Fort Campbell Boulevard would still transfer at the Fort Campbell WalMart but would now pay a second full fare. Anyone who must travel on the Fort Campbell, Peacher’s Mill or Cunningham Loop buses to get the Hospital, Clarksville Public Library, municipal offices at Pageant Lane, the Department of Human Services or Health Department, all of which require trannsfers, will pay $4.00 per round trip with the new fare structure. Buying a day pass at $3.50 would be cheaper by 50 cents, even if it is only needed for one round trip.

As it stands, the new fare structure means cost of riding city buses could nearly double for many people who use the Clarksville Transit System. While the actual fare per ride will remain unchanged at $1.00 per ride, the 25 cent transfers will be history. That means riders who need to transfer would pay full fare for that second ride, the second half of their journey. Since it is impossible to go from the western side of town along Fort Campbell Boulevard to the mall area along Wilma Rudolph Boulevard or to Madison Street and the Sango area without a transfer, all of those passengers could see their transit costs nearly double. The same applies to governor Sqwquare Mall and Madison route people who need to go elsewhere in the city.

The CTS claims its basic fares, that $1 per ride and slightly lower fares for seniors and mobility impaired people, will remain unchanged. Except for the price of that ride on a second bus.

The elimination of service to WalMart in Oak Grove, Kentucky, could also eliminate service to the some areas on the northern fringe of Clarksville along the Kentucky border. The CTS will also include discussions of adjustments to routes Including, for example, the Bus 6 that now serves the new Gateway Hospital.

APSU students will have free CTA transit and shutltle service across campus, with Austin Peay State University uderwriting that cost at $71,000 per year, with a contract stipulating up to 3% increase per year.

The APSU Student Government Association, in contracting with CTS, will “provide students, faculty and staff free transportation around campus via The Peay Pickup and around town on CTS buses.” The CTS operated Peay Trolley pick-up will run across campus from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. weekdays when the university is in session. Student activity fees will cover that cost.

Clarksville Transit System will operate the Peay Pick-up Trolley on and around campus between 7:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. weekdays when classes are in session. Peay pick-up cards are required for students using this new free transit system. Those pick-up cards will be available at both the Office of Student Affairs and the Morgan University Information Desk.

The Transportation Committee approved the following changes in transit rates:

* $3.50 for an unlimited day pass (a 50 cent increase)
* $45 for a 31-day pass (a $5 increase)
* $22.50 for a senior or mobility-impaired pass (a $2.50 cent increase)

At the hearing, CTS Director Jimmie Smith said fuel costs last year rose $145,000 over anticipated costs which were based on $2.25 per gallon. CTS is now scrambling to recoup that cost through this amended fare structure.

The public hearing will be an opportunity for those affected by this new fare schedule and proposed routes changes before they go into effect on September 1.