Community Transit

Album / Transit Values Event

Scroll through the photos to see the process participants go through in prioritizing service choices and cuts.

Manager of Strategic Planning June DeVoll explains how to interpret information on the Rider Cards. This fictional rider is disabled and does not have a vehicle.

There are 15 cards that each represent the service a specific rider uses.

The large numbers on the cards represent the cost of providing bus service that the rider uses. In order to reduce expenses by 20 percent, at least 25 points must be cut.

Small groups work together to develop a plan to cut service costs by 20 percent.

Several scenarios help participants get used to the trade-offs; for instance, one scenario may call for maximizing ridership (thus cutting low ridership service) while cutting 20 percent of costs.

Based on the Rider Cards cut in each scenario, a calculaion is made to show the impacts of those cuts to subsidy, efficiency, geographic coverage and ridership.

After testing several scenarios, each group is asked to come up with their best plan for cutting 20 percent of costs. Many factors come into play, including the transportation options of the riders in each card.

Saving money - and cutting points - has a human cost in the riders who lose service.

The map of the fictitious Crab Leg County bus system helps to illustrate the differences between rural, suburban and urban riders' transit needs.

Groups come up with a final service proposal based on the kind of transit service they value most. They must also explain why they cut the service they chose to cut (just as our agency must be accountable for those decisions)