Public transit agencies across the state may soon be seeing some changes in services as some face funding troubles. The Federal Transportation Administration recently made revisions to its agreement with rural transit agencies, requiring them to comply with federal immigration enforcement action, contradicting Oregon’s sanctuary state law. This dispute has left some federal reimbursements in limbo for agencies. At the same time, House Bill 2025, which would have raised billions through fees and taxes for road projects, ultimately failed in the state Legislature.
Melissa Metz is the general manager for the Coos County Area Transportation District. They recently announced some services will be suspended and will be accepting public comments at their next board meeting. Julie Brown is the general manager for the Rogue Valley Transportation District, the president of the Community Transit Association of America and the chair for the Oregon Transportation Commission. The RVTD recently shared that funding uncertainties will lead to a reduction in staff and service, alongside ODOT’s recent announcement of laying off nearly 500 employees. Metz and Brown join us to share more on some of the challenges facing rural transit agencies right now, and what they’d like to see in a special session from lawmakers.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Large reductions in public transit are on the way for Oregonians all across the state. It could mean fewer bus lines, shorter hours of operation, less weekend service. This is because of a kind of double whammy. The first came from the Trump administration, which recently said that rural transit agencies have to comply with federal immigration enforcement action. That contradicts Oregon’s sanctuary state law and the dispute has left some federal reimbursements in limbo. Meanwhile, at the state level, legislators failed to pass their transportation package that would have sent big chunks of money to transit agencies all across Oregon.
We’re going to get two perspectives on all of this right now. Melissa Metz is the general manager for the Coos County Area Transportation District. Julie Brown is the general manager for the Rogue Valley Transportation District. She is also the chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission, which oversees ODOT. They both join me now. It’s great to have both of you on Think Out Loud.
Melissa Metz: Thank you.
Julie Brown: Thank you.
Miller: Melissa, first – can you give us a sense for the level of cuts that you announced today?
Metz: Yes, the board of directors this morning invited the public to come make some statements regarding our proposed curtailments and suspensions. Then the board made the following decisions: First off, unfortunately, we are suspending – and no one wants to suspend service – but we are suspending the weekly trip from Coos Bay-North Bend to Roseburg, as well as an on-demand service for Bunker Hill, Eastside and Englewood. Those are three neighborhoods in Coos Bay.
On top of those service suspensions, we are curtailing demand response in Coquille-Myrtle Point from five days to two days, and in Bandon from three days to two days. And then we’re just shifting Powers intercity connection, Powers to Coos Bay-North Bend, from Thursday to Friday. So those changes in service will save us about $50,000 annually.
Miller: So some existing service lines will be simply fully cut, others will be reduced.
Metz: Yeah.
Miller: How did you come up with these specific reductions?
Metz: Well, we took a look at the cost-per-trip as well as the number of trips we do. For example, Roseburg, for us to send a driver over once a week, the allocated trip cost is $192 a trip. We’re taking one individual over to Roseburg weekly. So the cost of the trip, as well as the number, the level of participation in a service, those are the criteria that the board considered.
Miller: What did you hear from members of the public today or in recent days, after potential cuts were announced?
Metz: Most of the comments that we received were from the city of Powers. That was initially proposed as a suspension of service. And because it is a very remote community, this is their lifeline. So that is why the board decided to scale back demand-response in Coquille-Myrtle Point, so we can maintain that lifeline to Powers.
Miller: Julie Brown, what kind of cuts are you looking at in Rogue Valley?
Brown: Presently, we’re looking at about a 46% cut. It was, at one point, about 64%, but we’ve actually been able to add back a little bit of our employees. Our cuts are based on, not the lack of the transportation package yet, but are based on our federal dollars that have been pretty much held back and we haven’t had access to. Now, just recently we did receive a portion of it and we were able to put back a little bit more service.
Miller: But nearly a 50% cut in service is what you’re looking at right now?
Brown: Correct.
Miller: What’s that going to mean in practice? How do you achieve that level of a cut?
Brown: It’s very, very difficult. We are a small urban area in Medford. We have approximately 15 routes and we are going to be taking them down to almost half. What we look at is the cost-per-hour of providing that service. So, to give you an example, in 2017, the cost of a service hour was $70. Today it’s $125 an hour. We look at ridership on all the routes – and a lot of these routes are newer routes that we were able to put in play because of the state money – and being able to maintain it. So those are a different conversation because they were funded through the state dollars and not the federal dollars.
But looking at this, we have to make a decision on what it is we can provide, what kind of level of service. For us, we took out Saturday service, which is a large amount of our service, because on Saturdays we have to put an entire second shift on that we normally wouldn’t carry in our employment realm. It’s a costly service, so that is the first one to go. And then we’ve had to cut back on a lot of the different routes.
Miller: What do you see as the ripples within a community when public transit service is cut?
Brown: Well, I can say for myself, and I’m sure Melissa will probably echo a lot of what I’m saying, but this doesn’t just impact the employees that work here. This impacts the people who use our service. And for us, we provide over a million rides a year. So start thinking about who rides the bus. We have people who are using it to go to the doctors, who are using it to go shopping and to do their daily things that they need to do. But on top of that, there’s a large percentage of people who use it to get back and forth to work.
So for us, we’re looking at that piece of it, along with students that are going to the university and to the community colleges. They’re being impacted because they no longer have the ability to do those things. Then it has a rippling effect down because a lot of these people also work. They contribute to society, they contribute to our tax base. When they no longer can get back and forth to their jobs, it impacts the bottom line. So you’re not gonna see the people spending money on groceries, etc. So it has an impact on your economy.
Miller: Melissa, it’s striking that when you were talking about how you went about deciding which routes that would be canceled, you looked at the cost and the ridership, and as you noted, one of the trips that was once a week was $192 per trip, and one person was taking that. Maybe none of these are easy decisions to make, but that’s not a large number of people who are affected. But are there larger numbers of people who will be affected by the cuts you’re talking about?
Metz: With the curtailments and suspensions in our area, Coos County Area Transportation District, there won’t be a great number of individuals impacted. Our three primary fixture lines, which are in Coos Bay, in North Bend and Charleston – Green, Blue and Red – those we’re holding harmless because of the great benefit and the level of participation that those lines provide and support, getting, as Julie said, to employment, to medical services, and those other essential services like groceries and Walmart.
Miller: Julia, I want to turn to the federal piece of this. Oregon is one of about 20 states, I think it is, that have sued the federal government over its approach to grants for rural transit agencies. Can you explain what the Trump administration is asking agencies like yours to do?
Brown: Well, it’s really interesting because what they are asking us to do isn’t really spelled out in our assurances, as far as regulatory. But it doesn’t just impact rural areas, it impacts your urban areas too. So, for the larger areas like the Portland metro area or Salem, Lane Transit, RVTD, we receive our funds directly from the federal government. But the rural areas like Melissa’s receive them from the state. The state has to sign off on this agreement. The agreement states that they will participate in the removal of immigrants and it doesn’t really spell out how or how it’s going to impact us, other than we have to allow them on our facilities. So the state had to sign off on that for all of us, not just the rural areas. And they weren’t able to do that because of the sanctuary state.
With the injunction, they’ve now kind of dialed that back and they’re moving our grants forward. But it’s very, very slow, because the other piece of this that nobody’s talking about is the Federal Transit Administration has lost 50% of the people that work for them. So their jobs have been cut. Right now, our grants are being processed out of Atlanta, Georgia instead of Seattle, Washington. So it’s just a slow process that is really, really impacting all over the nation.
Miller: And there are echoes here of so many other pieces of the federal bureaucracy and money that was withheld. Then a judge says, “no, you’ve got to actually release that money,” and then we don’t know for a while, for weeks or maybe sometimes months, if that money is actually going to go through – whether it’s a grant, reimbursement or some kind of other federal expenditure.
At this point, you’re actually making cuts not knowing if you will get federal reimbursement dollars that could backfill and then could replace the service that you’re letting go for now. Is that a fair way to put it?
Brown: That’s a fair way to put it. I think for my district, as an example, we had what I would consider a pretty robust contingency fund to be able to do this, because all of these are reimbursements from the federal government. So you spend the money, the federal government reimburses you. You have to have a cash flow that’s going on, so all of us have had what we call our “contingency pots” to be able to sustain us during these times when the federal government is slow to reimburse.
But now they’re telling us, “We’re gonna reimburse you for last year, but we can’t guarantee the following year.” So for us, we’re having to really take a hard look at this and decide, do we just cut out the federal dollar at this point and just go on putting out service that we can sustain with our local dollars? And that’s where I think a lot of us are going because we no longer have that money to sustain us.
Miller: Melissa, were you affected at all by the legislature not passing its transportation package?
Metz: Oh, well, certainly. I mean, the hope [was] that the package would pass. It’s our ability to keep up with the infrastructure maintenance – just keep up with. I know that our operating costs per vehicle has risen 47% since 2019. So not having our STIF funds, basically not keeping up with that, puts us in a very precarious situation.
Miller: Julie, just to put some numbers here, in case folks haven’t seen these, the bill the Democrats did not pass would have increased a payroll tax for the Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund – the STIF that Melissa just mentioned – from, as I understand it, 0.1% to 0.3%, so tripling that. What would that have meant for your budget?
Brown: That was over a period of time, so it was incrementally being adjusted to look at that inflationary part. For me, at 0.3%, it would have brought me in about $8 million a year at the top part of this. In the beginning, the increment would be smaller, so I would see an increase … Let’s say if they even increased it to 0.1%, which would take me at 0.2%, it would have been about $9 million a year to my budget.
Miller: So what can’t you do because of that? I mean, what’s going to follow? And let’s assume, for now, that lawmakers do not act – and we’ll get to what might happen next – but what are you looking at now because it didn’t pass?
Brown: For me, as a district right now, what we’re doing is, the federal piece of it really put us into planning mode to look closely at what we could do to cut within our budgets and to actually balance. Because we do have to have a balanced budget. But now, with this not increasing, we’re going to have to look at continued service cuts. And it may be what we cut today stays what we call “right-sizing.” So we’re gonna right-size our system to have basic transit service that serves the highest populated areas and the most people, as far as where they’re going, and stay within those means.
For myself, right now, I was looking at an 82-person layoff. I’m now looking at something that is a little bit lower than that, probably a 67-person layoff versus 82, but it’s just right-sizing your system. We’re gonna have to stay within our means. Now a lot of people feel as though, “Well, that’s what it should be.” I think that it’ll be up to communities to voice their opposition to that. If they’re willing to go back to what our service looked like in 2008 and support that idea, then the district’s gonna have to stay within those means.
Miller: I’m curious about your thoughts about that. I mean, the Republican argument throughout the session was that public transit shouldn’t get more funding, that public transit agencies should be more self-sufficient. What’s your response?
Brown: I call them out on it. Being a Republican myself, I’ve worked extremely hard with this district to have a three-legged stool that’s pretty much set up so that it’s proportionate. For my local area, they’re contributing about 30%. The state is doing a little over 30%, so 33.5%. The state is doing about the same and so is the federal government. So to me, it’s looking at it holistically, to not only is my community bought into this, but so has my state and the federal government.
Miller: Where do you think Oregonians are going to be most likely to see the cuts from ODOT? About 500 people have been laid off recently. Where do you think we’re going to see those cuts? And I ask you this as the chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission, which oversees ODOT.
Brown: Those cuts, you’re gonna see on the road. You’re gonna see them at your county level, your city level and your state level, because a lot of people don’t understand that the gas tax increase, 50% of it goes to cities and counties. ODOT only gets 50% of those dollars. What you’re going to see is roads that aren’t maintained to the level they are now. You’re going to see the commission trying to make decisions on what is most prioritized in the state, as far as replacements of bridges, culverts, etc. And you’re gonna have a lot of frustrated drivers.
I think during the winter, a lot of people live in a bubble and they live in their own community, and they think, “oh well, there’s no snow in my community” or “there’s no problem with landslides,” etc. If you’re from Melissa’s side of the state, they see rock slides constantly. Those aren’t gonna get cleaned up as soon as they do. In my area, going over the Siskiyous, you’re not gonna see us plowing as much. So road closures are going to happen.
Miller: Where do conversations about a special session stand right now?
Brown: My conversation this morning with the governor’s office was, “we’re still trying for a special session,” and she’s working diligently with people to get them back in the capital and have that conversation. Are we gonna make it by the end of July? I don’t know, but all these people that are facing these layoffs, it’s not as simple as people think.
I really wish that lawmakers would have thought this process through, because one of the things that we experienced here at the district was that the payout to these employees when they go is tremendous. You have to pay out all of their discretionary time on the books. And then on top of that, to bring them back, they may have gotten another job. So we are losing some really valuable people. I see it daily in my LinkedIn, where people are being offered jobs from consulting firms and other DOTs.
Miller: Whether it’s Democrats alone or some kind of bipartisan vote, do you see a path for a majority of Oregon lawmakers to pass something like the final package that did not get across the finish line a couple weeks ago? Or are we looking at something more like the governor’s last-ditch failed “Hail Mary,” which was just a simpler increase in one pass. What do you think is most likely right now?
Brown: Well, from a transit viewpoint, I hope that they don’t forget transit and keep it out of the package. But honestly, I think that everyone’s gonna have to compromise. Transportation should be a bipartisan conversation and everybody should win. I think that the one thing that we probably won’t see is ongoing support of transportation projects that we haven’t been able to fund in the past. They had a lot of things in this package to try to finish up what was started in 2017. I think we’re probably gonna have to compromise, and it’s gonna hurt. But I think that we can reduce the cost to the taxpayers by using some common sense and working together.
Miller: Melissa, if you were talking directly to lawmakers right now, what would you tell them?
Metz: I would tell them that in rural counties particularly, reviewing the funding formula so that rural transportation districts have a base. And then from there, add a formula to ensure that those essential services are covered first. Then, depending on population, etc. that the formula, as resources become available, then can be distributed.
Miller: Melissa Metz and Julie Brown, thanks very much.
Metz: Thank you.
Brown: Thank you.
Miller: Melissa Metz is the general manager for the Coos County Area Transportation District. Julie Brown is the general manager for the Rogue Valley Transportation District. She is also the chair of the Oregon Transportation Commission.
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