Pullman Buses Full; Purse Empty I-695 Takes Big Bite Out Of System That’S Popular With Students

Everybody on this crammed city bus has a backpack.

They chatter about parties and classes. The aroma of fresh coffee and cologne intensifies with each stop.

By the time the bus arrives at Martin Stadium, Washington State University students occupy all 41 seats, and 30 more stand shoulder to shoulder in the aisle and on the stairs.

This is not your average city bus ride. While larger transit systems struggle to keep ridership up, Pullman Transit has enough demand to add buses.

But the popular transit system is undergoing major cuts after losing a third of its operating budget to Initiative 695.

“Not all transit systems are running empty buses,” said Graduate and Professional Student Association President Steve Kuehn. “Pullman is very different.”

Pullman’s bus system has the highest number of passenger trips per hour in the state - 69.6 compared with King County Metro Transit’s 31.7 and Spokane Transit Authority’s 21 passenger trips per hour.

In fact, Pullman Transit gave a whopping 1.2 million rides last year in this small town of 25,000 people.

It’s a phenomenon transportation officials call “the university effect.”

“It’s the nature of our community,” transit manager Rod Thornton said. “Students buy everything we sell in this town.”

They ride because it’s too cold to bike, because they don’t own cars, because campus parking is scarce, because it’s too far to walk from the approximately 1,000 apartments built off-campus in the past decade.

“We’re packed in there like sardines every day,” said WSU student body President Steve Wymer.

But despite its reputation as one of Washington’s best-used public transportation systems, Pullman Transit - like other transit programs statewide - was hit hard when Washington voters slashed their car tab taxes by approving Initiative 695.

To make up for the loss of $523,000 a year in state revenue, the city of Pullman has canceled Saturday and summer service, reduced Dial-A-Ride service for the elderly and disabled and eliminated five daily routes. Six of 29 transit positions are also being cut.

Most bus systems in Washington state are financed through a portion of the sales tax. But because Pullman lacks a sufficient retail base, its system is supported with a 2 percent utility tax. The budget, therefore, depends partly on Mother Nature, because low temperatures mean higher heating bills.

“We’re always hoping for below-zero weather,” Thornton said.

Nature hasn’t obliged. The last two mild La Nina winters have generated less money, forcing the transit system to dip into reserves. Two of the most common criticisms of public transit - that buses are underutilized and that most systems have deep reserves - don’t apply here.

“Pullman Transit is unique compared to some of their sister transit operations because they weren’t sitting on a pile of dough,” said Rep. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville.

Community members and WSU officials are now pitching in to protect the popular bus system from further cutbacks.

WSU students and administrators concerned about safety contributed $12,000 in student fees and parking revenue to help save the night express service.

“It’s very important to the university that the transit system stay viable,” said WSU Vice President for Business Affairs Greg Royer.

In addition to college students, 400 K-12 students ride city buses to school each day through a $44,000 agreement between the school district and the city. The district is extending its rural bus service to pick up the approximately 25 students whose city service has been cut, Superintendent Douglas Nelson said.

Though ridership is 96 percent students - counting both K-12 and college students - the transit system also has historically enjoyed a healthy measure of community support.

Retired WSU employees Barbara and J. Chesley Taylor recently donated $1,000 to help save Pullman Transit. The route that serves their neighborhood is being cut Feb. 4. Barbara has started a campaign encouraging others to “pay their own way,” while the state finds a solution. Currently students ride for free, as do the Taylors as retired WSU faculty and staff.

“We’re losing our good drivers. We’re losing our routes,” Taylor said. “But we could save it ourselves if we would just drop in the 50 cents instead of taking the free ride. I think they should charge everybody.”

Pullman residents narrowly approved the bus system in a 1978 citywide vote organized by an ambitious WSU student who was on the City Council. That student was Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who now serves on WSU’s Board of Regents.

The cuts are a shame, Marler said last week, given the tremendous effort it took to make public transit a reality in Pullman.

“It was an amazing thing that we were able to pull the university and townspeople together,” he said.

Marler said he believes there is support among Washington voters to pass a gas tax to replenish lost transportation money.

But transit employees aren’t waiting around for such a fix. Thornton is already busy writing federal grant requests.

“We’re doing everything we can to make it less harsh than it has to be,” Thornton said.

He remembers all too well the days when Pullman Transit was the “laughingstock” of the state with four 1962 GM buses purchased used from STA. One had no heater. Others had to unload passengers in order to make it up some of Pullman’s steeper streets.

“Pullman gets forgotten a lot,” Thornton said. “But if you live here long enough, you realize people are very resourceful and independent.”

“This is the worst that’s ever happened - this is the big one,” said veteran bus driver Randy Colby of the cutbacks. “But one way or another, we will survive.”