The fate of Madison's Metro Transit system in Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's proposed operating budget came under fire from several speakers at Tuesday night's City Council meeting.
Cieslewicz's budget suggests raising the city's share of Metro finances 4 percent next year, bringing Metro's budget to $43.35 million - over $500,000 short of what Metro says it needs to operate at its current level.
Unless the City Council appropriates extra money, Metro may reduce the number of runs buses make on the weekends and late at night.
That, said transportation advocate Michael Barrett, is unacceptable.
"If there's bus service near you, it will be cut," Barrett said.
Barrett urged the council to view recent high gas prices not as a crisis but as an opportunity to increase the public's use of mass transit.
Some speakers said the cuts would hurt people with jobs late at night or on the weekends - people that are more likely to use public transportation for economic rather than environmental reasons. Others cited the city's air quality problems and added that more buses mean less polluting cars.
Ken Forsberg, however, made his appeal for more Metro money romantic rather than financial or environmental. Forsberg said he lived in Washington, D.C., for eight years and is lobbying his Washington girlfriend to move to Madison. But he said she was too enamored with Washington's excellent public transportation system to go somewhere that was cutting, rather than increasing, the system's budget.
"Cutting Madison Metro is not helping my cause," Forsberg said to general laughter.
The council referred its budget discussions and vote to another public hearing next Tuesday.
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