Victory in Chico, CA
Sister Juanita writes in:
oh boy, we won one out here in the Sunshine State! Yeeeeeee-haw! Below is a link to our local paper and the story.
http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_12534675
Ah, yes, the good fight. Love it. Kick-and-scrap-allujah!
From the article:
A proposed fare hike for Butte Regional Transit has been scaled back slightly, in the face of public opposition.
Butte County Association of Governments staff had proposed raising the cost of an in-town ride from $1 to $1.50, with rides between cities going from $1.25 to $2.
The new proposal is an in-town rate of $1.40, with $1.80 between cities.
BCAG senior transit planner Jim Peplow said a big rollback had been made in the 30-pass hike, which had been proposed to go from $30 to $45.
The new proposal is $35, which Peplow called an incentive to get people to buy the longer-term passes.
The dial-a-ride paratransit fare would rise from $2 to $2.50 under the proposal, which would have to be approved by the BCAG board to go into effect.
The rate hike was proposed because of increasing costs and decreasing state transit aid.
Another issue was that fares collected by the dial-a-ride service weren't paying 10 percent of the cost of the service, as required by state law.
That rate can be no more than double the standard rate under federal law. The reason the standard rate is proposed at $1.40 is that a further dial-a-ride hike to $2.80 might be necessary to bring the system into compliance.
The full rate proposal can be viewed at the BCAG Web site, www.bcag.org. Click on "Proposed Transit Fare Increase" in the popular links box.
Any comments or questions on the revised rate hike can be mailed to Peplow at BCAG, 2580 Sierra Sunrise Terrace, Suite 100.
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Let's protect our mass transit! Keep that lifeblood of the neighborhoods pumping. Now we need state and federal government to start prioritizing mass transit funding...
oh boy, we won one out here in the Sunshine State! Yeeeeeee-haw! Below is a link to our local paper and the story.
http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_12534675
Ah, yes, the good fight. Love it. Kick-and-scrap-allujah!
From the article:
A proposed fare hike for Butte Regional Transit has been scaled back slightly, in the face of public opposition.
Butte County Association of Governments staff had proposed raising the cost of an in-town ride from $1 to $1.50, with rides between cities going from $1.25 to $2.
The new proposal is an in-town rate of $1.40, with $1.80 between cities.
BCAG senior transit planner Jim Peplow said a big rollback had been made in the 30-pass hike, which had been proposed to go from $30 to $45.
The new proposal is $35, which Peplow called an incentive to get people to buy the longer-term passes.
The dial-a-ride paratransit fare would rise from $2 to $2.50 under the proposal, which would have to be approved by the BCAG board to go into effect.
The rate hike was proposed because of increasing costs and decreasing state transit aid.
Another issue was that fares collected by the dial-a-ride service weren't paying 10 percent of the cost of the service, as required by state law.
That rate can be no more than double the standard rate under federal law. The reason the standard rate is proposed at $1.40 is that a further dial-a-ride hike to $2.80 might be necessary to bring the system into compliance.
The full rate proposal can be viewed at the BCAG Web site, www.bcag.org. Click on "Proposed Transit Fare Increase" in the popular links box.
Any comments or questions on the revised rate hike can be mailed to Peplow at BCAG, 2580 Sierra Sunrise Terrace, Suite 100.
----------------
Let's protect our mass transit! Keep that lifeblood of the neighborhoods pumping. Now we need state and federal government to start prioritizing mass transit funding...
More From Sister Juanita
The county announced the proposed hike and gave the public an e-mail address to send comments. People commented alright! Some of them contacted the elected officials directly, others wrote letters to the paper. The supervisors dropped the fee hike like a hot potato.
My district supervisor had just lost her house to a fire. People tracked her down at the house she was staying in and knocked on the door. Plus, she got over 100 e-mails and more phone calls she said.
I live in a small town of 90,000, the biggest town in our county of about 280,000. It's easy to pressure our elected officials, they live right here, have fairly regular jobs, shop at the same grocery stores, etc. It only takes about 100 votes to throw an election. We only have to get about 5,000 signatures to get a referendum or a recall on the ballot.
We're also lucky to have a couple of great local newspapers. It's pretty easy to get a "campaign" together.
Good luck to you all, keep it up!
Loveallujah - Juanita