Price of bus fares to increase

Thursday, Nov. 11, 1999 | 9:54 a.m.

The Regional Transportation Commission approved rate hikes for residential bus service Wednesday morning, raising regular fares from $1 to $1.25 for thousands of customers on dozens of routes throughout Clark County.

The commission's board also increased the price of an unlimited 30-day pass from $20 to $30, a bag of 40 ride tokens from $15 to $20, and the one-way reduced fare for people on fixed or low incomes from 50 cents to 60 cents.

RTC administrators said several months ago that they would seek the residential fare increase. The move follows an increase on three bus routes serving the Strip that raised regular rates from $1.50 to $2.

The increase in residential routes will take effect Dec. 1, RTC General Manager Jacob Snow said. The rate increase for the Strip took effect Oct. 17.

Snow told commissioners that this is the first residential-system increase approved since the system started operating in 1993, "but our costs to provide the service are going through the roof."

"Seven years is too long to go without a fare increase while costs are increasing as they are," Snow said. He added that gas price increases this year have hit the system particularly hard.

He also said that an annual re-evaluation of costs and fares should be done. This is especially important to address rising costs that spring from fluctuating gas prices, he said.

The move on Wednesday, approved by all six commissioners attending the regular RTC meeting, is expected to generate about $6 million in additional revenue for the Citizens Area Transit bus system.

Snow's presentation Wednesday before the vote echoed earlier RTC staff presentations. Snow and the staff have argued that without rate increases, the system would soon be losing money.

The average cost per fare on regular residential routes is $1.31, Snow said, but reduced fares for low-income riders and those who purchase monthly passes or tokens push the average fare collected down to 53 cents.

Revenue from a 0.25 percent sales tax and advertising on CAT buses subsidizes the system, he told commissioners.

The entire RTC system cost $75.1 million to operate in the last fiscal year, with about 85 percent of those expenses going to the CAT system and paratransit system for people with disabilities, Snow said.

A handful of people spoke against fare increases, although all but one said their biggest concern was with the cost of paratransit services.

Toby McCracken, a Green Valley resident, said raising the reduced-fare prices will hit hard people who live on fixed incomes.

"If you start raising the prices, I'll have to borrow money from somebody each month to pay my fare," McCracken said. He said he is a disabled veteran who uses the bus system to go into Las Vegas for medical treatment.

McCracken said he agreed with raising CAT system fares for people on the Strip, but not for people on the residential routes.

Lowell Pass, a Las Vegas city resident who wore colonial-era clothing to the meeting, also protested the rate increase, although his main concern was feared increases to the $1 paratransit fare.

"Disabled people shouldn't have to pay anything" while the paratransit system struggles to improve service, Pass said. "If you want more money, get a better bus system."

The RTC staff has not asked for a fare increase for the paratransit system, but Snow and other representatives of the system also have not ruled one out. Snow said the average cost of a single ride on the paratransit system was $25, many times what it costs the system to provide rides on the regular or Strip routes.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Mesquite Councilman Cresent Hardy, Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera, Boulder City Councilman Bryan Nix, North Las Vegas Councilman John Rhodes and Clark County Commission Chairman Bruce Woodbury voted for the rate increase.