Getting out the voteIt’s 9:24 a.m. and Bend Area Transit (BAT) bus number three buzzes along its route through the city’s south side, picking up passengers headed for destinations as diverse as its individual riders, when Annis Henson, seated in the second row, starts speaking out about voter registration and the November election.
Henson grips a clipboard snapped shut on brochures, voter registration forms and a pen. Everyone on the bus swings to attention at the sound of her voice.
“If you haven’t registered to vote yet, I can help you do that this morning,” Henson says. “If you’re 17 years old on or before October 14 and you turn 18 by November 3 you can register to vote in the state of Oregon.” She answers a bus rider’s question about registering if someone just moved here from out of state. She passes him the clipboard and he begins filling out a voter registration form. At Henson’s count that’s 70 people she’s now registered.
Henson is a member of Citizens for Bend Area Transit (C-BAT), a group of volunteers working to spread the word about a ballot proposal that would create a transit district for Bend and transfer BAT’s operating expenses from the city budget to a permanent property tax increase – 39.3 cents per $1,000 of a home’s assessed value, or about $48 a year for a home assessed at $287,000.
The vote is essential to BAT’s future and whether or not the two-year-old bus system will continue operating at its current level of service. Bend, like other cities, has been hard hit by the recession and housing market collapse, and is in the middle of a budget crisis that already includes three rounds of layoffs and other cuts to the general fund. If Measure 9-60 fails, the city council is likely to slash BAT’s $3 million budget, which includes $500,000 in capital costs, by 20 percent at the least, Bend Transit Manager Heather Ornelas says.
“That’s the most we can cut to still qualify for (state and federal) matching funds and keep service where it is,” Ornelas says. “The council could come back and cut more; they haven’t given any direction on what they are going to do.”
The city did make some recent moves designed to improve BAT service. It used a $418,000 federal grant to purchase four new buses with 100,000-mile warranties, and it received a $2.8 million state grant, awarded through a competitive process, to buy the Cascade Gas Company building at the corner of Fourth and Hawthorne, The building would essentially become Bend’s Grand Central Station, complete with an indoor waiting area, public restrooms and a ticket booth, allowing the 21 transportation service providers, in addition to BAT, that already provide service in and out of town to pick up and drop off passengers in one location.
The new buses already are in service, but the transportation hub is on hold pending the outcome of the ballot measure, and ultimately ending BAT service altogether is another option on the table, Ornelas says. That would leave Dial-A-Ride the only public transportation available to elderly, poor and/or handicapped residents, like Jordan Ohlde, 24, who rides BAT everyday by strapping his wheelchair into the back row of the bus.
“You have to plan far in advance to use Dial-A-Ride,” Ohlde says. “Even if you get a ride, they won’t always take you back, so doing something simple like getting your hair cut can take all day.”
Henson and C-BAT’s core group of 15 citizens, which consists of real estate agents, retired people, the wheelchair bound, students and other citizens – even City Recorder Patty Stell attends meetings on her own time – is doing everything it can on an $8,000 budget, raised primarily from private donations, to convince voters Bend’s three-year-old transit system is a vital city service.
“We can register people to vote but we can’t campaign or talk about the initiative with voters until October 14, which is when ballots are mailed,” Henson says. “That’s why we’re out here riding the bus, trying to register voters as often as we can.”
Mike Schmidt, former president and CEO of the Bend Area Chamber of Commerce, is the de facto leader of the volunteer committee. In between hours spent at his day job with a commercial site selection company he organizes grass-roots efforts to get the transit measure approved – staffing the voter registration drive; recording radio commercials; landing speaking engagements, following up with nonprofit endorsement pledges; and trying desperately to raise funds from the business community. So far, the committee received just $500 in contributions from local businesses, with Les Schwab Tires the largest donor at $250. Schmidt says business owners are telling him they don’t believe voters will approve the measure, and with the souring economy they would rather keep their cash than contribute to a losing cause. The idea of creating a transit district appeared twice before on local ballots, and on the last go-around the business community kicked in $10,000, Schmidt says. That measure, which was floated to voters in November 2004, failed by a margin of 53 to 41. (Roughly six percent of voters failed to even cast a vote on the question.)
“What the business community doesn’t realize is how important the BAT system is to its interests,” Schmidt says. “It takes employees to and from work, saving them $60 to $90 a month on gas. More importantly, it brings customers directly to them. Bend is largely a service-sector economy and many people working those $8 to $9-an-hour jobs greatly benefit from public transportation. The problem is, there is a large disconnect between business owners, wealthy residents who don’t use public transportation and don’t see a reason to support it, and the people who ride the bus every day.”
The committee is getting no help from a likely source of support – Bend’s Chamber of Commerce won’t officially endorse Measure 9-60.
“At this point the Chamber is not taking a stance on the transit district,” Communications Coordinator Courtney Linville says. “The Chamber Board of Directors has decided to remain neutral on this topic. The Chamber believes it’s important to supply information to our membership so they can make an educated and informed decision, and we have provided information and stories through various outlets, including the (chamber) Business Journal and the Chamber Weekly (newsletter).”
This past week the chamber included a four question survey in its newsletter.
Meanwhile, transit volunteer Henson looks over the rider’s voter registration form for errors. The bus stops along Brookswood Boulevard to drop off a woman taking her son to day care and picks up a rider headed for classes at Central Oregon Community College. One man is riding to the library to use the Internet for job searching. His friend tags along to run errands downtown. Dan Bussert, who owns a home-based consulting business, asks the bus driver to turn on BAT’s free wireless Internet service so he can squeeze in work on his laptop between meetings with clients.
“I sold my car recently and instead of buying a new one just decided to ride the bus,” Bussert says. “I don’t know what I would do – what a lot of people who use this service would do – if it disappeared.”
According to the city, about 700 residents use BAT for transportation every day. The system carries 6,000 passengers per week, or about 8 percent of everyone who lives in Bend. Almost half of the riders that use BAT and don’t otherwise qualify for the city’s Dial-A-Ride service, use the BAT system to get to and from work.
“That’s a lot of cars taken out of circulation from city streets, and a lot of people whose quality of life is improved by the existence of the BAT system,” Schmidt says. “There is no reason to believe ridership would not at least double in the near future if Measure 9-60 passes. Bend is large enough now that it needs an upgraded, up-to-date public transportation system, for future economic development and for the many people who are more and more finding themselves in a financial bind due to the recession and the current cost of living.”
This article appears in Oct 2-8, 2008.
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“According to the city, about 700 residents use BAT for transportation every day. The system carries 6,000 passengers per week, or about 8 percent of everyone who lives in Bend.”
Your number manipulation is faulty. You assume that every one of those 6000 riders is a unique passenger, which is certainly not the case. Therefore the actual percentage of the population who uses the service is much, much lower than 8 percent.
In the end, whatever percentage it may be, if BAT is such a great service, the ridership should have no problem paying the $16 per rider that it costs to operate the system. Or is that what makes it such a great service for this very small minority, they get to ride for pratically nothing, free loading off the tax payer?
When this new measure fails, hopefully Bend will have enough sense to immediately terminate BAT. By any measure it has been an unqualified failure.
“If BAT is such a great service, the ridership should have no problem paying the $16 per rider that it costs to operate the system”
WOW….If they could afford $16 a trip don’t you think they would probably drive everywhere they went…like you do…Just because someone makes less money than you doesn’t mean they work less or are “free-loaders”…That is a very naive way of looking at this. I usually walk and bike and yet I pay for improvements made to our city streets that YOU drive on with MY tax dollars…I guess that makes YOU a “free loader”…
Ridership may take time to increase but having a public transportation system in a city the size of Bend is a necessity. Hopefully voters will have some foresight and approve the measure
How many more times do the residence of Bend have to reach in their pockets to pay twice for the inept abilities of the City council and Mayor. For years the pathetic group of mindless fools, step over the dollar to reach the penny, and we continue to put up with their incompentence. Telfer is the only competent person in that fools group, and she probalby is leaving to go to the state legislature. I am sure.
Clean house, and for once hold people accountable for their decisions, and if not, roast them, not coddle them. Abernathy is the biggest fool of them all. He reminds me of the fable, the Emporer has no clothes mancha.
Daniel,
You have done an excellent job on this article. Thank you. I might point out that it is sad that the local business and chief representative for the business community, the Bend Chamber, has failed to realize just how transit benefits them today and for the long term. If they want to grow our local economy, transit systems play a key role in helping to make this happen. I am very grateful to the area labor unions for their foresight in helping to past this measure, both with funding for the campaign as well as working with us to register voters and other grass roots support. At least labor understands just how important transit is to our local economy.
I will be voting against this. Riders should pay more of the cost. West Side property owners will be hit harder than most in term of several hundred dollars.
I have only used the Bend Area Transit a few times that I needed to use it and the drivers and staff were very helpful in helping me get to the places I needed to get to. I lived in Portland, Oregon where public transportation is very essential to every day living. I am very much in favor of the bond issues for the Bend Area Transit System and would very much like to help in any way that I could in helping get this Bond issue passed so that necessary rerouting and expansion of the Bend Area Transit System. The BAT is very much a needed necessity and is very much used by the residents of Deschutes County and the Bend area in particular. Please support the Bend Area Transit Bond Issue and lets get buses to all of our communities or to as many as we can get the buses to. Vote YES on the Bend Area Transit Bond Issue and support our community. I may be contacted at chedepesh47@live.com. Get out there to vote and vote for this very important Bond Issue.
I have to laugh to this “supply it and they will come” ideal. Bend could triple in size and still not be able to support BAT. Creating such a level of undemanded supply is an appallingly irresponsible use of capital and exemplifies the fact that keeping as much money in the hands of the tax payers and not boon doggle government entities is the most efficient use of those dollars.
Conderned Commuter,
Whoever you are. I’m dying to know how you are aware of how much money I make, not that it makes the smallest difference what you, me, or anybody else makes in terms of this argument. What you call naivity, I call personal responsibility. I simply believe the system should charge what it costs to operate. If it cannot, it doesn’t deserve to exist. Asking 99% of the people to support this system for the 1% who use it is disgusting.
As a Dial-A-Ride to BAT convert from the day it started, I cannot be more outraged that they are even debating the idea of returning to Dial-A-Ride (DAR) only! How could they be more dumb as fiscal conservatives to shut out 98% of the ridership! YOU HAVE NO FREEDOM WITH DIAL A RIDE, and I am planning looking into an ADA complaint of my own since only fixed route (BAT) is accessible to me with Asperger’s Syndrome. DAR only works only with some disabilities NOT ALL! BAT is accessible to me because it does the same routes all day and is predicible. I hated DAR because it was unpredicable & I was treated like a little kid! If its efficency you want, keep BAT and dump DAR! Fiscal conservatives doing the opposite are shooting themselves in the foot (metaforically speaking). If you can’t afford this tax increase, look at what you are spending on entertainment (the “other” paper says the average household spends $200.00 a month on entertainment). For the love of god, dump your cable, ditch satelite radio, stop paying for bottled water (the proposed tax is just $1.50 a week!). If you vote no on this, that basically means you are terminally selfish, you hate our ecomony, you hate our homeworld (planet Earth), you are an A*& kissing auto/oil monger, and frankly you should be sent to Mars if you hate Earth so much!
I want to correct an item in Daniel’s article: the CBAT Voter Relations effort alone has about 15 people working. The total registration we will accumulate by Oct. 14 results from many of us working on this effort,not just myself.
It is very hard to communicate with self centered people. The responsibility for getting 9-60 passed lies with those of you who want it passed – get out and work for it, talking to everyone you can.
A few years ago, 20 maybe?? the Bulletin reported on a failed school levy: if every parent and employee had voted yes, it would have passed. Such is a lesson for this important measure: BAT riders and “believers” be sure to find 9-60 on the ballot and vote YES. Campaign with us – even for a few hours will help. futureoftransitcomittee@live.com
Long story short, it is just a matter of time until all of us do not drive. After an accident at age 78 my mom sold her car and used transit for the next 15 years. She got her groceries, went to the doctor, etc. She loved her independence and thrived by taking the bus.
I like to think I will be as wise as she was to quit driving before I hurt someone or myself.
Many elderly and persons with disabilities do not drive right now and need a way to be independent, get to their jobs, etc.
Bend’s population has reached sufficient size to support a transit district that supports its people.
Hooray for Annis and all those working to pass Ballot Measure 9-60! The issue isn’t whether or not the riders themselves should be paying the cost of public transportation. The issue is whether or not this is something we need for the common good. The purpose of living and working in community should be to build a more just, equitable and sustainable society. I believe a public funded transportation system helps us do just that.
Ms. Williver,
I agree with you, the common good should come first, and that commmon good is to not raise taxes on the 99% of Bend residents who do not use BAT. And yes, the problem IS that riders should be paying for their rides.
Let me ask all of you BAT supporting morons something: Would you operate BAT as your own private business knowing you were losing $15 on every rider? Of course you wouldn’t. But that is precisely what you are asking the tax payers of Bend to do.
Measure 9-60 is asking property owners to fork over $2.8 million in fiscal year 2009-2010 when the fiscal year 2008-2009 budget is $3.0 million. That amounts to property owners funding approximately 92% of BAT’s annual budget.