Does anyone know if OCTA plans to resume Night Owl service once the depression ends?

I haven't been living here long enough to know, but from what I gather, it was former OCTA CEO Art Leahy who pushed for 24-hour service in September 2002 ( http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-120205834.html ); unfortunately he has left to head up the more transit-friendly Metro in Los Angeles. My guess is that 24-hour service will be gone for a very, very long time unless riders mount a huge protest against this.

Another person on this blog commented on her experiences with Night Owl (it mirrors my own experience riding the 57 after midnight).

Very useful website, wants to see much more on it! Go on!

lol Jesus Christ.

What exactly can you say about it? As much as the nuts on the OC Register blur the issue, this is a state funding issue. Instead of protesting the OCTA people should be protesting in Sacramento.

I'm not sure how you fix things besides crossing your fingers and hoping the economy picks up again, thus raising the tax revenues that fund mass transit. We could also legalize pot and repeal Prop 13, hopefully injecting some of that tax money into mass transit.

Who the hell knows, anymore?

At this point I'm inclined to just ignore the trolls that post on ocregister.com. :)

It's still worthwhile for regular people to protest to the OCTA (and to state politicians) for a few reasons:

• Their Board of Directors consists of local politicians (e.g. district supervisors, mayors, etc) representing each district, and my guess (judging by an OCTA Board meeting I attended) is that they are not involved in transit lingo and day-to-day operations. For example, many of the directors didn't get the concept of the rapid bus project, asking questions like "Why isn't there an express line from Disneyland to the beach?"
• Putting pressure on their Board shows that there are people in this area do care about what happens to transit. The hope is that at least now our local politicians have such a picture in their minds and may "send the message" up to the state level.
• Protesting the bus cuts makes for press coverage (as opposed to no press coverage at all).

OCTA's website has a "public comments and meetings" where, based on complaints and suggestions from the community, they'll figure out what areas/services to keep, and what to cut. As for the "how" part, like you said, I don't know, but it's not the regular commuter's job to figure this out. :)

Would rasing fares, by as much as 100% be enough to solve this nightmare?

Double fares are still only $2.50. I'd much rather pay this amount than risk losing my job because I have no other way to get to work.

What do you guys think? Should OCTA (and other agencies) temporarily double fares if it would allow them to keep the current level of service?

Should we have yet another (temporary) sales tax increase to see us through this depression?

That's a very good idea, William, and I wonder why OCTA hasn't offered that option at all. When they released their budget_employees page a few months ago, ( http://www.octa.net/budget_employees.aspx ), it seemed like they were enthusiastically sounding the economic doom-and-gloom alarm and are happy to cut jobs. Maybe I'm reading too much into their web design, though.

(e.g. They released an interactive Flash map of all of this past March's service cuts. When I went to their customer roundtable a few months ago, they seemed very enthusiastic about showing off this map of their service cuts.)

I'm not sure how politically feasible raising taxes would be in Orange County (I wouldn't mind it personally).

I sent in a comment card to the OCTA and asked them to double the fares in order to save bus service.

Wow, this move will greatly cripple the transportation system. I'm sure everyone will be affected one way or another. Is there no other solution? Taxes are already high enough, and I don't think people will be happy if there's an increase.

Better to pay the increase and still have a way to get to work. As it is now, many people may lose their jobs simply because they have no transportation.

I support the increase, but only if it's temporary. It needs to be repealed as soon as the state starts contributing again.

"Taxes are already high enough, and I don't think people will be happy if there's an increase."

Do they want to pay $1.50 more per trip or $30-40 more for a monthly pass or do they want to lose their job due to bus service cuts (or poorer quality bus service that is late more often) and receive zero income?

There's another lively discussion I'm having with OCTA's officials on Facebook with their "Orange County Ready to Work" group. Feel free to join.

The group is at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=67987855984

The thread is at: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=6996&post=29158&uid=67987855984#post29158

Here's what I wrote first:

I'm curious... is there a funding reason why OCTA keeps expanding freeways (the 22, the 91) to disproportionately benefit automobile drivers, instead of saving Orange County's existing bus service or starting new transit options for all of its residents?

OCTA's financial outlook has a "doomsday scenario" that claims that it may need to slash up to 50% of all bus service hours within the next few years.

And, the Bravo rapid bus system launch date keeps getting pushed back.


The priorities here don't make sense.

Here's what Michelle Chittenden (from OCTA, I think) wrote:

Steven,

OCTA is attempting to address a budget crisis caused by the economic recession. In fiscal year 2008-2009 OCTA had a record loss of revenues totaling $36.4 million.

These losses come from:
• $19 million shortfall in tax revenues – Orange County’s lowest in history
• $17.4 million in cuts because of the state budget crisis

We are doing everything we can to minimize the impact these losses have on the local community. There is no question that reducing bus services will affect Orange County significantly, but we simply cannot provide the level of bus service that we would want for our customers because of the dramatic budget shortfall to our bus operations. So far we have implemented hiring freezes, eliminated salary increases and awards, cut service and supplies and eliminated capital expenditures but more cuts are needed.

With a population of 2,997,033 people, Orange County is expected to grow over the next 10 years. Freeway widening and infrastructure improvements are absolutely necessary to keep Orange County from becoming a 789 square-mile choked-up parking lot. Traffic is bad today, but if we don’t solve the problem now, we can expect traffic to get worse in the future.

With your support and over 2,000 other, we were able to bring $212 million to Orange County for projects in transportation from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The stimulus money requires that projects be shelf-ready, create or maintain jobs and different sums have been allotted for bus service and road and infrastructure improvements.

I understand your concern for bus service. However, we are doing our best to keep Orange County moving, create as many jobs as possible and to improve the quality of life for all of Orange County by implementing long-term solutions.

I guess my question is, I'm puzzled b/c there was a little chunk of time where all government officials were scrambling to get capital projects ready. I'm wondering why OCTA instead scrambled for a lot of widening projects but left their Bravo! rapid bus system to languish. Ideally they still have to install traffic stops, install ticket machines, install the new bus shelters, etc. Maybe the funding is already there? I don't know.

The marginal utility of adding an extra lane of traffic decreases as you add lanes. You cannot expand freeways indefinitely. If that were the case all we'd have to do is expand every freeway to 100 lanes and traffic would be a thing of the past. One of the reason freeway projects are so hotly opposed by those in the know is that they understand that freeway widening results in a poor return (added capacity) for a huge investment.

It would make sense to grow bus and rail service in Orange County to provide an alternative to traffic. There will always be traffic no matter how wide you make the freeway.

I just posted on the FB thread as well. I'm really disappointed that she flat out said freeway widening is absolutely necessary. I mean, really? There are numerous examples of regions doing absolutely fine without road expansion.

I didn't know you had to use your real name on Facebook, haha. Good thing I don't care about posting on Facebook, a.k.a. the largest data mining operation of all time!

Hey, at least you posted. Reading that Facebook thread is refreshing from OC Register's enlightened discussion. And I'm wondering if putting my name out there is going to bite me in the buns in the future, esp. if future patients Google me. But I take comfort in the fact that my name is like the Joe Smith of Chinese people.

No offense, Steven, but I wouldn't want a doctor who is into mass transit operating on me!

Kidding.