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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday
April 5, 2002
| Contact: | Michael
Harbour, Intercity Transit General Manager, 360-786-8585 | | Don Krupp, Thurston County Chief Administrative Officer,
360-786-5440 |
TRANSIT
SERVICE AREA SHRINKS
OLYMPIA – Local elected officials voted
Thursday, April 4, to reduce the service district in which Intercity Transit,
as the area’s public transportation provider, operates service.
The reduced boundaries include the cities of Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater
and Yelm and their respective urban growth areas.
The existing boundary
had been all 728 square miles of Thurston County, based on a countywide
expansion that occurred in 1993. With
this decision, the service and taxing district of the Public Transportation
Benefit Area will approximate the urban growth areas of Olympia, Lacey,
Tumwater and Yelm and a
connecting transportation corridor between Yelm and the urban hub of Thurston
County.
The vote on the
service district reduction was mixed. The
5-3 vote came after a month of public comment, several meetings involving
elected representatives of all incorporated jurisdictions and lengthy dialog.
“The lack of a unanimous vote and considerable discussion on this
topic attests to the complexities of this issue,” stated Graeme Sackrison,
Lacey Mayor and current Vice Chair of the Intercity Transit Authority.
“It was not an easy decision, but now that it is made, Intercity
Transit will do its best to serve the citizens of these communities.” Sackrison added that the transit agency will continue to
pursue creative transportation solutions for area residents, including help to
people in areas now outside of the new operating district. Some options already under consideration are rural community
vanpools and transportation programs funded by grants.
Shrinking of the
transit boundary became a necessary, although painful, option after the loss
of almost half of the transit agency’s operating revenue.
The loss funding was a direct result of the passage of car tab
Initiative 695. Prior to I-695,
Intercity Transit had already begun reducing service, primarily in some rural
and suburban areas of Thurston County. At
its peak, the transit agency operated 40 routes with corresponding paratransit
service, a 6-county vanpool program and carried 4.1 million rides
annually.
Intercity Transit has been borrowing
on its reserve funds since 1998 to sustain its fixed route and Dial-A-Lift
service on the street. In 1999,
after a sales tax request failed at the ballot box, followed by the loss of $8
million MVET dollars, the stage was set.
“We simply didn’t have the resources to offer service to rural
areas while providing effective service to the urban area,” stated Mike
Harbour, General Manager for I.T. since 1995.
“If we could not deliver transit service, the agency felt a
responsibility to ask if it was fair to continue to collect taxes in the
unserved portions of the county.”
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