City to look at transit costs

Barbara Diamond

Festival trams and municipal buses were free during the summer, but

city officials are debating whether the cost to the city too high.

“We appear to be terminally ill and on financial life support,”

Councilman Wayne Baglin said at the Nov. 4 meeting. “We have to

figure a way to make the system self-sustaining.”

The City Council gave staff until March to come up with some

options, perhaps an impossible task.

“I know of no transit system in the country that is

self-sustaining,” said Steve May, director of the Public Works

Department.

Baglin said he could live with a transfer of maybe as much, but

certainly no more than $50,000 from the city’s general fund or the

parking fund. Government grants are fine.

“That’s just giving the resident taxpayers’ money back to them, so

that is good,” Baglin said.

The Laguna Beach Transit system is the only municipal bus system

in Orange County. Federal, state and county grants, transfers from

the parking fund, and passenger fares fund the system.

“I was [council] liaison to the Festival Committee when the

parking at ACT V was free,” Mayor Toni Iseman said. “We wanted an

incentive to get people to leave their cars out of town. Parking and

paying once and riding the Festival Tram without having to worry

about paying each time seemed logical.”

It worked. Parking dramatically increased at ACT V in the summer

of 2002, the last year fares were charged. An estimated 310,000

riders took the free trams last summer, an increase of about 60,000

over 2002. Year-round Mainline ridership, which totals about 90,000 a

year, showed a 3,000-rider increase last July, when summer fares were

eliminated for the first time.

However, the cost of operations for the Festival Tram service

skyrocketed when fares were eliminated. The cost of operations jumped

almost $200,000 when free rides began, and capital improvements

increased by more than $500,000. The $775,000 worth of improvements

included the purchase of three new trolleys.

The revenue from the parking fund transfer jumped almost $400,000,

21%, when the city eliminated summer tram fares in 2002, but is

budgeted for a smaller hit this year, an estimated $60,000 drop from

last year.

“We are using that fund for everything but parking,” said a

disgruntled Baglin.

ACT V parking fees partially made up for the loss of fare income

the past two summers.

“If people can afford to come to Laguna, they can afford to pay to

ride the tram,” Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson said. “I can’t support

it any longer.”

Additional service -- more buses running more often and farther --

and the elimination of fares contribute equally to the increase in

the cost of the city’s municipal transit service, Pendleton said.

“This comes down to a policy decision,” she opined.

Councilman Steve Dicterow supports the free trams.

“Is it subsidized? Yes,” he said. “It’s a trade-off for quality of

life, and it’s a trade off I am willing to make.”

Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman said the city needs to think of ways

to save money, but not at the expense of the free trams.

“It is important to keep the free tram service,” Kinsman said.

“For some reason, people prefer free tram service and paying for

parking.

“The staff should figure out what we need to charge to make the

system pay for itself at the same level of service as this year and

report back to us,” she said. “I’m not saying we will use that

number, but I want to know what it is.”

City staff has tentatively scheduled a report for the Feb. 3

council meeting.