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Pierce Transit Restores Cuts
The Pierce Transit Board of Commissioners in Lakewood, WA, recently announced plans to use excess reserve funding to restore 59,000 hours of service by the end of 2017—15,000 hours this year and another 34,000 hours next year—and begin hiring and training activities this year for 35 additional employees.
The agency’s reserves total about $110 million, about half of which is required by law.
The three phases of the project are:
System Refresh: Increase name recognition on shelters and bus stop signs, touch up paint and replace damaged glass in shelters and maintain clean and well-kept grounds around facilities.
System Renewal: Renew existing properties by making necessary repairs and improving security, landscaping and lighting, making properties easier to manage and maintain.
Service Restoration: The return of 59,000 hours of service; hiring of 35 new staff members, including 18 operators, four relief operators and five journey-level mechanics; and the purchase of seven new buses.
“A number of factors contributed to our higher reserves,” said spokesperson Rebecca Japhet. “Since 1980, the average sales tax growth in our county was about 6 percent. When the recession hit, that number went negative for several years [2007-2009]. Pierce Transit was forced to cut service dramatically—by about one-third—during that time. Once sales taxes started increasing again, our goal was to make sure they would keep increasing and stabilize before aggressively expanding service.”
She also said that when sales tax revenues began growing again, they came in much higher than expected, also boosting the reserves, and that lower fuel costs and cost-saving measures added to the net growth.
Japhet explained that the system did not want to expand service if more cuts might have become necessary, but “now that we are seeing sustained growth again, we are confident things have indeed stabilized and we can sustain expanded service.”
Pierce Transit receives about 72 percent of its funding from a sales tax of six-tenths of 1 percent. “The economy has a big impact on our services,” Japhet said. “With things coming back, we feel comfortable making investments at this time.”
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