24
in other words
december13
2011
Voices from the Crowd: Columbia County Needs Public Transit
Janet Wright
Transit Administrator Columbia
County Rider Transportation
This is a response to a letter that
was printed in the Opinion Page of the
Spotlight News Paper on Wednesday,
November 2, 2011 regarding one person’s
question about public transit services in
Columbia County. The person stated
that “The Columbia County Rider is not
a necessity”. “Is it just a pet project of
our Commissioners”? “Something that
they can put their stamp on”.
In terms of value for the Citizens
of Columbia County, I get calls every
day asking about how we can increase
our service to meet the rising demand
from our residents. I am getting more
and more calls from employees seeking
information as to how they can get to
work using our system. Our services
have grown from a fledgling senior
system that was started in the 70’s by a
very dedicated group of senior citizens,
to a system that provides expanded
service for commuters, seniors and the
disabled, students and the general public.
Transit services, especially in hard
economic times are extremely important
because those services are efficient and
economical and they provide options
in an ever increasing atmosphere of
limitations. Below are a few facts that
citizens might be interested to know
about their transit system.
No. 1.: In FY 2009/10 Columbia
County Rider provided 81,247 rides,
in 2010/2011 we provide 91,633 rides.
This represents a 12% increase in
ridership in the last two years. In the
first four months of the current fiscal
year we have provided 32,020 rides. If
we keep up this pace, we expect that we
will be providing 100,000 rides by the
end of the year.
According to the State of
Oregon
Employment
Department,
Research Section, of the 21,719 workers
in 2009, the most recent data available,
73.8% (16,002) of our county residents
commute outside of the county to work,
26.3% (5,717) of county residents work
within Columbia County and 36.6%
(3,300) of the county’s jobs are held
by non-residents. The percentage of
people who live in Columbia County
and commute outside the county for
work has increased, from 69.5% in 2007,
71.2% in 2008, to 73.7% in 2009. The
Rider system has provided much needed
transit options for those who do have to
commute.
Columbia County Rider is given
a small cash contribution ($30,000) from
the County General fund as the County’s
contribution for transit services. We
also apply for and obtain community
contributions from the communities
we serve, i.e., St. Helens, Scappoose,
Rainier and Vernonia in the form of
cash or fuel, so that we can provide
fixed and flex route service, and demand
response service for our elderly/disabled
populations and the general public.
With those local contributions, we
are able to leverage grant funds, and
bring back into the Columbia County
Community approximately $3 to $3.5
million dollars to provide transit services.
The rider system provides employment
for a minimum of 22 employees. These
are family-wage jobs with benefits.
No. 2.: The majority of the
funding that helps pay for public transit
is provided through grants from the
Oregon Department of Transportation,
Public Transit Division and the Federal
Transit Administration and other grant
sources.
No. 3.: The third source of
funding we have is provided by the fares
that our riders pay to ride our system.
This year these fares are projected to
amount to approximately $325,000. The
fares we receive, in accordance with our
grant requirements, cannot be use for
purposes other than providing transit
service operations. In plainer terms this
means that we have to use these fares to
directly off set the routes we run. We
can’t use them for new buildings, bus
barns or office furniture, etc. Those
of you who ride with us know that we
have just updated our fare structure, and
changed to a zone based system. This
fare increase has allowed us to not have
to cut back service levels at the current
time and we hope that it will help us
prevent huge service cuts in the future.
The one question that I am
consistently asked when I talk to some
groups, is “why do I constantly see buses
running around with no riders on them”?
The fact of the matter is that, these same
people never comment on those times
that they see the buses loaded with
commuters going into Portland on a
weekday morning or coming home in the
evening. They don’t look at those sites
where our riders park their cars to even
get a feel for the number of residents
who use our service. One of those sites
is at 1st & Prairie Street in Scappoose.
On a typical day at that site there can be
parked as many as 50-60 cars belonging
Zeke, as he was known to his
family and friends, was born to Marvin
and Annie Brewer in Forest Grove, OR
on May 7, 1945. He spent his childhood
in Vernonia, Corvallis and Reith. At
age 17 he joined the Army and served in
Vietnam.
After being discharged from the
Army he settled in Vernonia where he
met and married Marie Atkins. They
had two daughters, Shawn and Yvette.
Zeke and Marie later divorced. Zeke
married Karen Marie Biros and they had
a daughter, Tamara.
Zeke worked for Crown
Zellerbach for many years and later was
transferred to Wauna. The family moved
to Westport, Clatskanie and Kelso, WA.
After retiring, Zeke enjoyed
fishing and spending time with his
grandchildren. He lost his battle with
cancer on November 9, 2011 at home.
Zeke is survived by his sister
Laura, brothers John and MC, half
brother Robert, three daughters, two
step children—Andy and Crystal, his
wife, several grandchildren, one great
grandson, many nieces and nephews, his
beloved friend Wanita and dear friend
Ben.
A graveside service with Military
Honors was held November 28, 2011
at 1:00 PM at the Vernonia Memorial
Cemetery.
Arrangements are being
handled by Groulx Family Mortuary in
Rainier, OR.
In Memory of... continued from page 23
Ezra L. Brewer
May 7, 1945-November 9, 2011
VERNONIA
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V
SER PAIR
& RE
Warranty on all parts and labor
• Brakes • Oil Changes
• Clutches • Tune Ups
• Maintenance
58605 NEHALEM HWY. S.
Next to Storage, Too
503/706/9409
to those who use our public transit
system. The several other stops we use
that are located in St. Helens and Warren
Baptist Church, provide park n ride
stops, and they are heavily used by our
riders.
The answer to this question,
though, is one that those who don’t use
public transit never think about. When
planning for transit use you have to gear
your system to the type of rider you
serve. We know that we have a huge
number of riders that ride to jobs outside
our county, 73.8% or 16,002 people
(according to the 2009 stats previously
mentioned). If we only had small buses
we would need a huge number of them
to provide the number of seats we need
to transport all of these riders. This
would cost an exorbitant amount of
money and not provide good service to
our riders, so we plan for those numbers
and purchase the size of bus we need
to provide the service. Now, are these
riders on the bus all day? The answer
is no, they use the bus at certain times
of the day. For those times, when we
don’t need the bigger buses we do use
our smaller more efficient buses to do
the other types of transit services we
provide, i.e., demand response service
for elderly/disabled and other riders who
have medical appointments in Portland,
Longview and at the two local clinics,
shopping and other appointments. We
also try to do these services as efficiently
as possible. Instead of making a trip to
Portland for a medical appointment with
only one passenger, we work to get as
many people on the bus as possible.
We are always looking at providing
efficiencies in service and still provide a
service that our riders can say serves
them well.
In summary, I agree that law
enforcement is important, but let’s not
be self serving and un-factual. And
we should not forget that right now
our Columbia County Community
faces many challenges and there are
other services out there that are just
as worthy of our consideration as law
enforcement and even public transit.
Vernonia’s Voice is
published twice each
month on the 2nd
and 4th Tuesday.
Look for our next
issue December 27th.
291
A
Street
call Kim
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