My Timberland boots crunched against the highway gravel as I marched to the Riverhouse Lodge bus stop, my breath visible. I checked my watch: 15 minutes early. I was up an hour earlier in efforts to get a jump on the North Bend route 4 bus — my veritable ghost ship. I’d missed it almost as many times as I’d caught it, and to my horror I saw it barreling down the highway, moments from passing me entirely. I hurried the best I could in the cold, but alas. Going, going, gone. I wanted to howl with rage.
I tried taking a seat at the stop, but the 2-foot-square excuse of a bench was covered in water. Figures. Twenty minutes passed by, maybe more; I was freezing. So, I did exactly what I was trying to avoid: call an Uber, $20 with tip. An ordeal; no other word for it, all in my efforts to get to Central Oregon Community College for class at a decent time. This is one of too many other times I’ve had to endure with tales to tell. And so I ask: what is the point of a public transportation system if it cannot adequately transport the public?
I moved to Oregon two and a half years ago and have used the Cascades East Transit System since, primarily in Redmond and Culver, opting to save for college over getting a car. To afford my future I’ve sacrificed my time, sleep, comfort and efficiency; I wish it felt more worth it. To say it’s been frustrating would be an understatement.
My long-overdue move to Bend this past January halved my commute time, from two hours to one. I’ll never forget getting up at 6 a.m. to make it to my 7:22 bus, riding the half hour to Bend, waiting 20 minutes at the station, then another 20 minutes ride to make my 9 a.m. class.
In such a car-centric society, it’s too easy to overlook the minority of Central Oregonians who need the transit system. To help bring awareness to the issue, I interviewed CET Director Bob Townsend to understand the system from a bird’s eye view.
He said one of the biggest hurdles is a lack of public awareness, despite having upward of 300,000 riders last year in Bend. Though one person can count for multiple riders –– the system counts each rider of each route this knowledge gap still affects both ridership and public support, consequential for a system dependent on state and federal taxes.
Covid-19 exacerbated these problems, alongside bus driver retention; at one point drivers were quitting weekly. But the signing of a new contract for unionized drivers last April helped stabilize conditions, and for the first time in five years, CET is not actively recruiting.
Townsend said one of his current focuses is to raise public awareness about the option to ride. He wants people to consider taking the bus intermittently; even if it isn’t compatible with someone’s schedule for three to four days a week, one or two days could be critical. More riders tend to lead to more services — times and routes — which tend to increase riders, he said. An undiscounted ride costs $2, and a daily pass costs $6, with options for weekly, monthly and annual passes.
Another cited issue is Bend being a low-density population. “Apartment complexes in Portland or Salem, where you have 1,000 people living in a block area… (are) going to impact transit use, where we (have) to touch a lot of different areas.”
It doesn’t help that 51% of Bend’s workforce commutes from outside the city limits, according to an EcoNorthwest study. Casting a wider net impacts efficiency; it can still take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour commuting from the east side of Bend to the west side. That’s a 20-minute drive, tops.
This was addressed recently by increasing the frequency of bus stops to 15 to 30 minute intervals at specific locations during specific hours, Monday through Friday. But Saturday service is still limited, only introduced to Redmond recently, and there’s none on Sundays. Too many times I’ve nixed my weekend plans remembering that I’m either too late — last departure time is 4 p.m. on Saturdays — or just out of luck.
Other routes remain unchanged or changed for the worse – sometimes double the standard wait time. As Townsend explained, “Generally a system change in one place or improvement means something is getting adjusted somewhere else, but those are the types of things that we need to do to be successful.”
And a similar thing can be said with benches, which vary widely from a full-on shelter to nothing at all. Townsend said part of this inconsistency lies in trying to evenly distribute funding across the stops in the city. Busier stops get more attention, and more money.
I’ve seen this system grow leaps and bounds during my tenure here; I remember seeing the announcement of Bend service times being lengthened, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. I wasn’t restricted to commuting to Hawthorne Station at 5 p.m. anymore; it was the flexibility I needed. And other similar changes have occurred since. But the system, and the community, still have a long way to go.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
