Site Location: Main > Executive Director's Message

Terry Bassett Executive Director, YCTD

Answers to most common questions we received on fare changes:

1. Why do you need to increase fares?
-- As feared, the Governor and Legislature have taken away $518,000 from transit in Yolo County THIS year, plus another $1,036,000 each of the next four years! That was an extremely hard financial hit that will have an ongoing negative effect for sometime.
-- We have many riders dependent on a transfer agreement between YOLOBUS and Sacramento Regional Transit District (RT). RT has given notice to cancel the existing agreement. We have been negotiating with them on a new transfer agreement for the past several months. The bottom line is that RT will no longer reimburse us based on their monthly pass rates, but on ours. If we don't raise our base monthly pass fare to $85 or more, we could lose as much as $200,000 annually in fare revenue due to the decreased compensation RT was going to pay us if we stayed at the $60 YOLOBUS pass rate.
-- The Local Transportation Fund (1/4 of one cent sales tax), which covers most of our bus operating expenses, is projected to be lower next year than it was three years ago. Without growth in that fund, especially for some jurisdictions, a growing percentage of YOLOBUS operating expenses must come from the farebox.
-- Some YCTD jurisdictions (e.g., West Sacramento) are tapped out in terms of spending all of their available Local Transportation Funds, including any reserves, for transit service. Unless the amount of fare revenues can increase, service would need to be cut back in some communities to avoid a deficit situation.
-- YOLOBUS has not raised its fares since December, 2003. In four years, expenses have risen 59%.
-- Paratransit fare revenue needs to rise to keep up with the high cost of providing paratransit services. For 2007/2008, fares made up only 3.5% of the $68.02 it cost YOLOBUS to provide each ride on its curb-to-curb service. YOLOBUS also transports riders to medical facilities beyond our fixed route bus service area, but that comes at the cost of decreased efficiency in terms of rides per hour. We want to continue to offer this service to our frail elderly and disabled riders who need it, even though it is not a legal requirement.
-- Collectively, our bus riders pay about $2.5 million of the $9 million YOLOBUS bus operating budget in fares. The other $6.5 million comes from part of ¼ penny sales tax distributed to the four cities and Yolo County, federal and state transit funds, and revenue we receive from third parties, such as Cache Creek Casino Resort.
-- Within the last year, we acquired $5.3 million in new buses. We have another $3.6 million in new buses on order. Your fares do not cover any of that expense; rather, we rely on local, state and federal sources to pay for those buses. If fares were needed to recover the cost of buying each bus, fixed route bus fares would need to increase by another $1.00-$1.50 per one-way ride. Fortunately, we have been very successful in competing for other funds to pay for the buses.

2. I am an express bus rider. Why are my fares going up higher and faster than non-express riders? Doesn't that mean I am subsidizing them?
The express bus fares cover 40-50% of express bus operating costs. The other 50-60% of what it costs to operate the express buses is covered by local, state and federal funding sources. In the case of non-express buses, the "farebox recovery ratio" is anywhere from 10 to 35% on most other routes. From surveys we've performed on our buses, we know that riders on non-express buses tend to have a lower average income than riders of express buses. That is why we limited the amount of the increase on non-express buses. As you see, express riders are not "subsidizing" non-express riders; rather, express riders are actually subsidized, albeit at a lower percent.
Also, we must maintain, insure and fuel the extra buses, as well as hire extra drivers, utility workers, mechanics and more peak hour supervisors to keep the express trips operating. That raises our operating costs. Which is a more effective way of using buses-35 express riders tying up a single bus during peak hours for 70 boardings a day, or 150 non-express riders using a bus all day and accounting for 300 boardings? It all depends on how you look at it and whether or not you factor in the minimum $400,000 it costs to buy a bus these days.

3. What did you do to control or reduce expenses, or increase other revenues, before you proposed your fare increases?
We try our best to be run lean. On the expense side, we use interns as much as possible to help limit staff related expenses. Currently, interns make up 20% of the people who work in our offices. Because we use natural gas buses, we've saved about $400,000 a year in fuel expenses. Salary ranges for non-management employees who work directly for the Yolo County Transportation District have not changed in 2 ½ years and the Executive Director's salary has been frozen. Most staff training expenses are covered by one-time state training grants specific for that purpose. We've also contracted our service out to the private sector for 27 ½ years (Veolia Transportation is our contractor), saving taxpayers an estimated $45 million over that time. Put another way, had we not done this, we would have probably put about 25,000 fewer hours of bus service on the street each year.
On the revenue side, we've accomplished the following:
-- Receive over $1 million a year in funds from the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians to cover part of the overhead, make our shop a 24 hour shop, and offset nearly all of the operating expenses associated with Route 215 to Cache Creek Casino Resort
-- Receive over $1.2 million a year in "Sacramento Urbanized Area" competitive grants, which we use to offset YOLOBUS operating expenses
-- Receive ongoing grants from the Yolo Solano Air Quality Management District for reduced fares for youth during the summer, solar powered lighting, and triple bike bicycle racks
-- Receive millions of dollars in competitive grants through the Sacramento Area Council of Governments to buy replacement buses and to pay for major rehabilitations of other buses






Terry Bassett, Executive Director
Yolo County Transportation District