Economic crunch puts more of us on the bus

By Thomas V. Bona

BusinessRockford.com

Carolina Perez remembers when only four or five people were on the East State Street bus.

That wasn’t so long ago.

“Now, it’s standing room only, especially when I get off work at night,” the Rockford resident said.

Deena Peska of Rockford is one of those new riders. When gas prices surged this spring, she started taking the bus to visit family and run errands.

“When you’re on a fixed income, you’ve got to do things like that,” she said.

Ridership on Rockford Mass Transit District buses was up 10.4 percent in the fiscal year that ended June 30, spokeswoman Lisa Brown said. This spring, ridership was up more than 20 percent while gas prices rose more than 33 percent.

The district had 1.65 million riders for this past fiscal year, the most since 1996.

“In the 21 years I’ve worked here, we haven’t seen those kind of increases,” she said. “Our drivers are telling us they’re seeing a lot of new faces, but also that existing riders are riding more often.”

While ridership is up on all routes, the biggest gainers are the School, West State and East State streets routes.

Brown said a route structure instituted in 2004 and an expansion last year to CherryVale Mall and Magic Waters have helped raise ridership. But gas prices are the biggest factor in the recent run-up.

“We have stepped up our marketing efforts to let people know that gas is expensive and riding the bus is cheap,” Brown said.

The last time the district saw this kind of spike was 1979 to 1981, when it increased 28 percent in three years. Gas prices more than doubled during that time.

RMTD ridership peaked at nearly 3 million passengers in 1982, but steadily dropped over the next 20 years to fewer than 1.3 million in 2004. The drop mirrored a decrease in inflation-adjusted gas prices, which hit historic lows in the late 1990s.

“In years gone by, we have been criticized for running buses that were too big for the ridership,” Brown said.

That’s not the case now. She wouldn’t call buses crowded, but there are definitely times that the most popular routes are full.

In March, the district started offering free rides to seniors, following a state mandate. Since then, senior ridership has tripled, from 700 a month to 2,200.

But that increase accounts for a fraction of the 30,000 more riders the district saw in April.

The free-rides mandate actually helped the district, Brown said, because it came with an additional $1.2 million in state funding. That extra money has offset the increase in diesel fuel costs and other expenses.

The district spent $948,000 on fuel through May 31, a 56 percent increase over the previous year. The fuel line was $265,000 over budget.

There was some concern that Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s cuts of some mass-transit funding last week would affect RMTD, but administration spokesman Brian Williamsen said the increased local subsidy is intact.

RMTD officials are looking for federal “reverse commute” funds to pay for service expansion in the next year or so.

Rockford residents Pamela Mustin and Chanel Young, who used to live in Chicago, said they like that the fare is cheaper here — still only a $1 — but they would like to see buses run more often. Most buses come every 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the route.

Brown thinks ridership hasn’t peaked because there are still many people who can afford to drive, even with high gas prices.

As prices swell and those folks hit their threshold, though, they might be looking for a seat, too.

Contact staff writer Thomas V. Bona at 815-987-1343 or tbona@rrstar.com.