Riled riders finding healthy alternatives
By Johnny Brannon and Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Staff Writers
Kathleen Norris used to take TheBus three days a week.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
Not anymore, and it's not all bad.
Teamsters negotiator Mel Kahele, center, discussed the latest offer O'ahu Transit Services presented during negotiations last night.
"I've never felt better," said the 56-year-old Makiki woman. "When buses do come back, I'm going to try to walk at least one way. My husband can't get over how much energy I have!"
The strike that has crippled O'ahu's public bus system for four days could persuade many other commuters to change their habits permanently, especially if the dispute drags on.
Henry Kellerman spent the second night of the bus shutdown designing himself a new T-shirt. It reads: "Bus rider on strike."
He has been walking to work and intends to keep up.
"I'm buying a bike," said the mortgage company worker. "Tomorrow."
But there could be serious damage to the bus system — and more traffic snarls — if others turn to cars en masse and give up on public transportation, officials warn.
For example, many students who began classes at the University of Hawai'i this week are adopting transportation habits they'll keep, city transportation director Cheryl Soon said.
"They've had to find something on a temporary basis, and as the semester wears on, that will become what they do for the whole semester," Soon said.
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It's important to recognize that low-income riders are most burdened during a strike, said Dr. Randall Crane, associate director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA.
"They are least able to make other arrangements, with pretty severe consequences in a long service disruption," Crane said.
People who can afford alternatives may give up on buses, however.
"In the short term, people obviously find other ways to travel," he said. "The problem is how to get them back, and that is harder to do the longer the strike. If the strike is long enough, a substantial share of riders may make other permanent arrangements."
Bus ridership on O'ahu has slowly waned for years, dropping from 77.8 million rides in 1996 to 68.5 million in 2002, according to city estimates based on farebox data.
Ridership also dipped sharply after a 2001 fare increase and the economic slowdown that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks later that year, causing a $2 million shortfall in projected fare revenue.
Officials were hoping for a ridership rebound before a budget cut and threatened service reductions and layoffs led to more fare increases this year and fueled the ongoing labor dispute.
With some riders now fed up, and yet another fare hike promised by the City Council to help end the strike, the number of passengers could take another dive.
"The strike has prompted me to consider alternatives to the bus commute," said Charles Kerr, who has ridden buses to work for the past three years. "Parking where I work costs approximately twice as much as a monthly bus pass; so, driving in is looking like a viable option that I've overlooked for too long."
Public transportation ridership plummeted in Philadelphia following a bitter 40-day strike by transit workers in 1998, but returned to pre-strike levels within six months. After an earlier strike, for 14 days in 1995, ridership stayed down for nearly two years.
"After a strike there's usually a prolonged period where ridership grows slowly, and it often doesn't reach pre-strike levels," Mayor Jeremy Harris said.
A strike by Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus drivers in Los Angeles shut down the nation's second-largest transit agency for 32 days in 2000, and riders abandoned the system in droves.
Ridership had been at a five-year high before the strike, and the agency offered free rides for five days to coax riders back when the strike ended.
Many riders who bought bus passes that have been useless during the Honolulu strike want to know if they'll get refunds.
City spokesman Doug Woo said officials are well aware of such concerns and are discussing how to fairly address them.
Austin Parker of Kapalama is glad he didn't sign up at work for an automatic bus-pass deduction like his friend, Michelle Waits, who's stuck with a September pass, protracted strike or not. Parker bought passes at a store on a monthly basis, but doesn't intend to buy one for September.
Still, TheBus has its advantages, he admits: "I prefer riding TheBus. All that time in traffic, I'm thinking, 'I could be reading a book.'"
Reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
Reach Mary Kaye Ritz at mritz@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8035.
