The State Of Madison Metro Transit

Frankly, I don’t use Madison Metro Transit buses much. In fact, I can tell you exactly how often I have taken a bus in the past six years: twice. Well, four times, if you dissect the roundtrips. With that record, I am part of a large majority of people in the Madison area who ride the buses either not at all or very rarely.

And like them, I have my reasons – or excuses, as you will. As a journalist based in Middleton, I would for instance lose too much time if I had to rely on the bus service to get me to my appointments. After all, outside peak hours, the buses run only once every one and a half hours. I could of course schedule my appointments around the bus system, but that would make me very inflexible.

I also find the bus routes and schedules hopelessly confusing (actually, in that sense the sparse service in Middleton is nice: I can’t get on the wrong bus, since there’s not much choice). Mostly, however, do I enjoy the convenience and flexibility of individual transportation, car or bike.

Catherine Debo, Metro Transit general manager for the past five years (she will leave her job in September this year), is well aware of the public transportation system’s shortcomings, and this fall a number of changes will go into effect that are supposed to address some of them, including a higher frequency on some routes, reduced travel times and less confusing routing patterns.

But she also points out that Metro Transit is remarkably efficient. Thus, a five-year Wisconsin Department of Transportation performance audit comparing Madison Metro to public transportation systems in other communities of similar size nationwide found that Metro Transit had four times as many riders per capita as any other transportation system and provided more than twice the amount of hours of service.

In 2005, Metro Transit had 11.8 million passengers, which makes and average of 50,000 passengertrips per day during the (high school and university) school year and 27,000 passenger-trips per day when school is out. Of these 11.8 million passenger trips, 282,000 were for paratransit service and 11.52 million for fixed route service.

Metro Transit operates about 200 fixed-route buses and 19 paratransit buses (it contracts out about 70% of the paratransit trips). The system consists of 45 fixed routes with four transfer points, 124 bus shelters and 2004 bus stops.

Metro Transit employs about 480 people full-time and parttime, most of which are bus drivers.
Its operating budget is about $42 million, $30 million of which cover salaries and benefits. Its main sources of income are state funding ($15.2 million); local funding, including from neighboring cities and other entities that have service agreements with Metro Transit and pay to get bus service ($10.7 million); passenger revenue ($7.6 million) and federal funding ($4.8 million).

Metro Transit is a department of the city of Madison, but it has service agreements with the cities of Middleton, Fitchburg and Verona, the town of Madison, the UW, MATC, the Madison Metropolitan School District and the American Center. Under discussion are transit agreements with Oregon/Stoughton/Evansville, Cross Plains and Sun Prairie. Unlimited ride pass agreements for students or employees have been reached with the UW, MATC, Edgewood College, UW Hospitals, St Mary’s Hospital and the city of Madison.

And it looks as if 2006 is going to be an even better year than 2005: “We think we might reach 12.4 million passenger-trips this year,” Catherine Debo says, attributing at least part of that increase to higher gasoline prices.

So far for the good news. Catherine Debo sums up the bad news: “Troubled local funding, frozen state funding, flat federal funding. This puts us in a bind and since 1998 we have had to clip the level of service that we provide to meet budgets.” But while the fuel price increases have a good side (they stimulate ridership), they also have a bad side: Metro Transit buses run on fuel, too.

To reduce fuel consumption, Metro Transit has just put in an order for five hybrid-diesel buses, and although they are significantly more expensive than regular buses (about $500,000 per hybrid bus compared to $300,000 for a conventional bus), Catherine Debo hopes that, besides the 25% reduction in diesel consumption and lower maintenance costs, together with the ultra-low sulfur diesel fuels its conventional buses use, the impact on emissions will also be noticeable.

Metro Transit being a Madison utility, any service outside the city of Madison depends on the participating surrounding municipalities. The service agreements can be changed or cancelled by the municipal authorities, putting public transportation in the greater Madison area on shaky foundations.

The service provided also depends on the amount of money each community is willing to spend on public transportation. The city of Middleton for instance has decided to increase the public transportation it provides for its residents starting this fall. Besides a better coverage of the whole city and its developments west of the Beltline, the off-peak frequency will also be increased from 90 minutes to 60 minutes. It also means that Middleton’s share of the cost rises from $200,000 per year to $240,000.

Ideally, Catherine Debo would like to see the establishment of a regional transit authority with taxing authority: “Regional transit authorities have been established across the country quite successfully. There are none in this state, but we are trying to get the state legislature to create enabling legislation, which would make it possible to create a regional transit authorities around the state.” But how would a regional transit authority be financed?

“There are different models working around the country. One is to have taxation authority to enforce a certain level of property tax in each community. Alternatively, the sales tax has been the most common mechanism. A motor vehicle tax would also be possible in this state, although it has not been used much and is unpopular. A sales tax would probably have the best possibilities.”

Carl Durocher, chairman of the city of Madison’s Transit and Parking Commission, also sees a regional system as the way to go: “We now contract with other municipalities on an individual basis for service. But in planning we are vulnerable to decisions by each city council in how they want to participate. The agreements are always vulnerable to political whim.

The Transit and Parking Commission has oversight over Metro Transit and has to approve for example fare changes. It also schedules public hearings like the ones that took place in the spring of this year to get public input for this fall. “The focus of the commission is to give people a voice,” says Carl Durocher.

We are sitting in the lobby of the Madison Municipal Building during the interview, and at this point a passer-by comments: “Once Madison Metro has made up its mind, God will have a hard time changing it.”

Picking up on this, Carl Durocher points to a dilemma: “This is very frustrating: Many people, especially transit users, have the perception that we are not bus advocates or that Metro Transit are not bus advocates. That is of course wrong, but our problem is that all we can do is rearrange the pieces – we can’t create any more pieces.”

According to Carl Durocher, funding, especially state funding, has not kept pace with inflation, and additional funding is needed for an adequate public transportation system: “It is not about raising taxes, however, but about redistributing the huge state Department of Transportation budget. Just compare the amount of money that is spent on public transportation and what is spent on highways. But, the harsh reality is that highway contractors are big contributors to state legislators’ campaigns. It’s a problem of priorities on the state level. We can’t influence state transit aid, but we can influence fares. Unfortunately, fare hikes are unpopular with riders and policymakers. Also, when fares go up, that can have a negative impact on ridership and before you know it, you’re on a downward spiral of raising fares and losing riders.”

Carl Durocher is opposed to generating revenues from advertising: “It is too small to warrant all the controversy. But I have an esthetic reluctance to use advertising, as well as a problem with the underlying assumption that public property is available to the highest bidder. Plus, we don’t need to be bombarded with commercial advertising all the time. But even if we decided to make space available for advertising, that still wouldn’t mean that we’d be able to sell it. It’s not a good way to build a bus system.”

Metro Transit’s biggest weakness according to Carl Durocher is service: “The hours of service should be extended and the frequency of the buses should be increased. We need to make it easier for people to use the bus system. We also need to maximize passenger amenities, like have good bus shelters and more of them, as well as amenities at transfer points. Ideally, we’d have a higher frequency, a higher length of service and lower fares.”

That is also the goal of Madison Area Bus Advocates. Susan De Vos is chairwoman of the advocacy group that was formed in December of last year by people who saw the need for a group to represent the interests of the bus riders. “We felt the need for such a group because the general orientation in public transportation seems to be that fares are going up and service is going to down,” Susan De Vos says. “If we want to make public transportation more attractive, it should be the other way round. But all the state money is going into roads and the bus systems are being cut back. People who work second or third shifts for instance, or who work weekends are not served well at all by the busses.”

She also points out a serious flaw in many (mainly Republican) legislators’ arguments that tax cuts benefit everyone: “After housing, transportation is the second largest expense for most households. Reducing taxes that underwrite public transportation will end up costing taxpayers more money if they are forced to buy a car because no alternative is available.”

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