Gas costs fuel bus ridership

By Steve Mocarsky smocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

WILKES-BARRE – Deborah Williams thinks she’s “getting too old to ride the bus.”

Public Square in Wilkes-Barre is a busy location for buses in the mass transit system.

Fred Adams /the Times Leader

“But the price of gas is just so expensive,” the 51-year-old Wilkes-Barre resident said on a recent sunny afternoon while sitting on a bench on Public Square, waiting with her son for her mass transit ride.

Williams would rather be driving because of the convenience. But these days, it’s either board a Luzerne County Transportation Authority bus or, “if it’s a mile radius, I’ll walk,” she said.

Stanley McCloskey, 68, of Edwardsville, passed time talking to friends on Public Square while he waited for his 4:25 p.m. ride back home on Bus No. 7.

“Unfortunately, my car is being fixed,” McCloskey said, adding that the repairs have had to wait because of rising costs.

Williams’ and McCloskey’s are stories that Stanley Strelish has been hearing more and more often during the past year, especially more recently as the local price for gasoline creeps closer and closer to $4 a gallon.

Strelish, executive director of the LCTA, provided data that show bus ridership in the month of April increased by nearly 150,000 from the same period last year – an 11-percent hike.

“That’s an enormous amount. I think it’s primarily attributable to the high price of gas. It started about a year ago and has been going up ever since. And people’s vehicles are breaking down and they can’t afford to repair them,” Strelish said.

The price of gasoline has climbed 30 percent in the Wilkes-Barre area from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008, according to Mike Caddell, an intern with the AAA Mid-Atlantic Region. And people are feeling the pinch on their pocketbooks.

Catherine Rossi, spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said polls showed that people would “significantly alter their driving habits” if gasoline prices reached $3.50 per gallon, “and it has crossed that threshold.”

“People are now looking into carpooling or any sort of mass transportation available because if they know there’s a possibility of savings, they are more likely to consider that now than ever before,” Rossi said.

“Gas prices have never been this high. People are considering options they never would have before, and riding the bus is one of them,” she said.

Based on transporation authority data, senior citizens seem to be the hardest hit by gas prices.

Data show that 416,372 seniors rode the bus in the first quarter of 2007 while 605,114 rode the bus the first quarter of this year – a 45-percent spike.

Strelish said new state legislation probably also helped senior ridership grow.

Thanks to Act 44 in 2007, funding was made available to allow senior citizens to ride free anytime; free riding times were previously restricted.

While the gas crunch is hard on all travelers, it’s resulted in some positives for the authority, including an education for the public about mass transit.

“More people are seeing what we have, how to use it and the savings they can realize by using our mass transit system,” Strelish said.

While diesel fuel prices are also rising, the authority has remained unaffected because it locked in a bid of $2.27 per gallon for the current financial year.

And even though Strelish expects a huge hike in diesel costs when the contract ends in June, bus passengers need not fret about paying more.

“I’m anticipating that with a revenue increase from the state because of our increased ridership, I don’t foresee an increase in fares this year,” Strelish said.

The authority received about $4.4 million from the state toward its $7.7 million operating budget last year. Strelish isn’t sure how much of an increase in state funds he’ll see next year.

The authority is also increasing revenues in other ways.

Operations director Robb Henderson said authority buses used to log about 230 “deadhead” miles per day, when buses traveled with no passengers on them.

By starting runs a half hour earlier and ending them a half hour later each day, the authority picked up more passengers and brought deadhead miles down to 116 per day, Henderson said.

The authority also picked up more passengers by adding runs to the Midway Shopping center in Wyoming, adding a Shoppers Delight run to Wal-Mart and the Arena Hub shopping area in Wilkes-Barre Township, and making some extra daily trips to Wal-Mart and to the Hanover Industrial Park, Henderson said.

“We’re going to evaluate the system on an ongoing basis and make changes where we feel they should be made to improve our ridership and service,” Strelish said.