Essay #1: The Rising Costs of Public Transit Fares

Billy Askew   

Meghan Cogswell

English 1

February 2, 2012

The Rising Costs of Public Transit Fares

            Have you ever had to rely on your local community’s public transit system? It probably cost a small fortune in bus or metro fares just getting to and from your every day necessities. These inconveniences in our public transit systems in the United States today are making it hard for citizens to get to their daily duties. Rising bus and metro fares in our public transportation systems is a major problem in Humboldt County due to the lack of government funding. We can fix this quite large problem by demanding a sum of the governments funding for public transit alone.

In cities all over the United States of America, public transportation is overpriced and very unreasonable. This is inconvenient for people who have little or no income and have to get to work. Even kids have to use public transportation to get to school. The law requires that school aged children attend five days of school a week, but how can they possibly obey the law if they have trouble getting to school? I have had to utilize public transportation for about two years. I lived In Ridgewood, a small neighborhood south east from Eureka.  I would ride my bike 6.13 miles to the bus station. Then I would have to pay $2.50 to get on the bus, unless I had a month pass which costs $50. My mom didn’t have a job, so we weren’t making any income. I had to pay for bus passes when I didn’t have any money to spend in the first place. There are two kinds of fares on the local bus systems in Humboldt, reduced and regular for a person that is anywhere from 18 to 62 years old, they would have to pay a regular fare, $2.75. But if you are below 17 years old or older than 62, you only have to pay for a reduced bus fare, $2.50. A week pass for a regular fare is 15 dollars and for a reduced fare is only 13 dollars. Finally month passes for regular fares are 55 dollars and a reduced fare is 50 dollars. If you were below the age of seventeen and had to buy one bus pass per month to ride the bus, than it would cost $600 per year. If you happen to be of age to pay a regular fare then you would need to pay $660. Where would a person with little or no income get this kind of cash?  We need to find some way to delete or drastically reduce these ridiculous bus fare costs.

            Public transportation in Humboldt County alone is overpriced and demanding. It costs the equivalent of a half gallon of gas to get on a bus. It would be easier if you drove, and faster too. The public transit system in Seattle, Oregon is free and very easy to use. You can get on and off without having to pay a dime to the driver. The reason they have such clean air, reduced traffic congestion, and a great economy is because they get government funding. According to about.com, Public transportation gets little funding and 80% of what they do get goes to roads and high ways (Mackechnie). Jerry Brown, the governor of California, has made budget cuts due to the billions of dollars that we are in debt. He is putting more funds into public transportation but more and more of that money is going into the high way systems, making it very difficult for bus and trolley systems to create income. Public transportation companies resort to raising fares and shortening frequency between buses. Brown insufficiently funds public transportation but he is paying 100 billion dollars to help build the bullet train from Los Angeles to New York (latimes.com).  Brown refuses to help us get to and from work or school but he can spend 100 billion dollars to create a train that runs from the two greatest cities in the United States today. I understand that a more efficient way to travel the country is important, but we also need to get to and from work every day.

            If the Humboldt Transit Authority could get the right funding, at least it wouldn’t cost so much to take the bus. There are a few simple methods that we could try out such as, protesting at the main office of the Humboldt Transit Authority, see if we can get a bill written, or demand at least 3% of the governments funding for public transportation alone. With the proper funding the bus systems would either be free of charge or a lot cheaper. We could also try having Jerry Brown fund schools better and require that schools who have low-income students that ride the city bus, provide bus passes for them. Also, if we listened to the Occupy Movement and taxed the rich, then the government would have more income, therefore increasing the amount of money the government can spend. The last possible solution that I could think of was to require that all of the money given to public transportation stays with public transportation, not given to Cal Trans to help with high ways and roads. If we were to enable these laws there would be a drastic change that is noticeable in just a few months.

With just a few simple changes California could have reduced traffic congestion, a happier community due to the ability to walk and be stress-free, cleaner air, and a great economy. Until these changes are made we have to pay an unreasonable amount of money to get on the bus. If the government spent money on just public transportation and not roads and high ways on the same funding, all of these things could be part of our every day society.