SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) -- In an effort to address the issue of passengers being left behind, the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority (VTA) will increase the frequency on several bus routes.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, passengers on VTA’s buses and light rail cars are now required to be six feet apart, leaving limited space in each vehicle.
According to VTA officials, hundreds of passengers are being left behind each day due to the reduced capacity in accordance with COVID protocols.
“On average 650 passengers a day are affected by the pass-ups,” said Ken Blackstone, VTA spokesman. “And of course one pass up can affect more than one customer if you have multiple people waiting for the bus.”
In response, VTA will be increasing seven bus routes where a majority of passengers are reporting being left behind: 23, 25, 64, 66, 68, 71 and 77 starting Feb. 8.
The increase in frequency on those bus routes will also result in adjusted schedules on many other routes.
“As you can see it can create quite a challenge when all of sudden you reduce the capacity of a bus for example by something like 70 percent of the number of people that can fit on it,” Blackstone said.
“That’s challenging but we are glad in this case to be able to increase service on those seven routes and we believe that it will go a long way to addressing the issue of customer pass-ups.”
VTA’s changes also come in response to requests made from a recent customer survey where their top two requested items included more frequent service and real-time passenger data.
Monica Mallon, founder of Turnout4Transit, a campaign to preserve transit services in Santa Clara County tells KRON4 News VTA’s changes are a step in the right direction but does little to solve other major challenges.
“This is something that we have been advocating for many months and we think that it's a really important step in the right direction, they really are putting all of the resources that they have which is good, said Mallon. “But unfortunately it's not that big of an increase because they haven't been hiring for eight or nine months at this point, so they just have so many operator vacancies that there’s only so much service that they can operate.”
In partnership with Silicon Valley Transit Users, Mallon discovered over 17,000 people were passed up by VTA buses in the month of October.
Founder and CEO of Silicon Valley Transit Users, Eugene Bradley, says “that number is more than enough that would fill the Shark Tank for a game,” and in many cases making people late to work.
“That’s 17,000 people that can’t work, can’t get to appointments, and are likely now being fired because they can’t show up,” said Bradley. “What’s worse, probably half of that is more rideshare people on the road unnecessarily having to spend 20 dollars just to keep their jobs.”
Public transportation is vital for many facing economic strain especially amid the pandemic as many families are struggling to make ends meet, Bradley says.
Bradley encourages riders to voice their concerns to the transit agency in an effort to improve current transit conditions.
VTA is now responding to riders' concerns and is doing the best they can to adhere to state and county COVID-19 guidelines to safely serve the community, Blackstone says.
In September, VTA adopted a COVID-19 10-Point Plan which outlines 10 steps the agency is actively performing to keep the community it serves safe amid the pandemic.
But the transit agency still has some of its major challenges ahead of them as they face millions in budget cuts.
“We’re doing what we can to adhere to those standards and we are adhering to those standards,” said Blackstone. “As of our last projection was that we could be facing as much as an 80 million dollar budget gap for the current fiscal year that we are in.”
Riders can sign up to receive service alerts and get real-time crowding information via VTA’s Transit App.
Click here to see a detailed description of VTA’s changes.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/2XIcGQf
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