Finance committee carries over BJCTA bus discussion

The finance committee has delayed its final decision on reducing Homewood’s BJCTA bus service until its next meeting. In the meantime, committee members will be talking to constituents and studying the number of people with disabilities who use the bus system’s “paratransit” services.

Homewood originally decided to halve its contribution to the BJCTA during discussions of the 2015 fiscal year budget. Currently, Homewood pays $274,142 for around 4,900 service hours on three routes – Routes 14, 39 and 42. According to the BJCTA, an average of 450 people use Homewood’s routes every day, including around 120 senior citizens and people with disabilities. The city decided to cut its payment because council members felt that they were paying too much for the bus service, especially since Homewood has not had representation on the BJCTA board since 2012.

At their Dec. 1 meeting, the finance committee considered a BJCTA proposal that would reduce services to the new funding amount while hopefully affecting the smallest number of riders.

BJCTA Executive Director Ann August explained that the proposal would not change Route 14, which serves about 165 riders every day and covers the Idlewild-Palisades area. Routes 39 and 42 would be reduced to operating during peak hours only. Route 39 would serve its 97 riders from 6:17 a.m. to 9:55 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7:12 p.m. The 185 riders of Route 42 could only use the bus from 6:22 a.m. to 10:02 a.m. and 3:35 p.m. to 7:17 p.m.

August warned, however, that these reduced hours would affect users of the paratransit services.

Ward 1 Place 2 Representative Britt Thames pointed out that Route 39’s most-used stops are at the Wildwood Walmart and the stops on 18th Street, and many of the other stops have little to no activity. He suggested that Route 39 be eliminated entirely, with the Wildwood stop being added to Route 14 and the 18th Street stops added to Route 42.

“It appears to me like we could lose one route entirely,” Thames said. “It’s driving through our city, costing us money, frankly, and it’s not being used.”

Henry Ikwut-Ukwa, the BJCTA manager of planning and development, said that routes cannot simply be modified without overhauling the entire route system. He noted that Mountain Brook had requested an additional stop on one of its routes that would add 10 minutes to the route time. The only way to make this possible, Ikwut-Ukwa said, was to add a whole new bus.

August said the BJCTA would need a formal letter from the city of Homewood in order to make any official changes to the route. Chief of Staff J.J. Bischoff said the mayor sent this letter when the budget was approved, but August said the BJCTA had not received it. As of right now, Homewood continues to receive its regular services and full cost.

Ward 3 Place 2 Representative Walter Jones decided to carry over the discussion until the next finance committee meeting, so the members could do more research about the city’s riders and paratransit users. The committee asked August to provide information on when people with disabilities are using the buses and which stops are most active.

“I think we need to do a little more study on the paratransit issue,” Jones said. “Are we being wise with our taxpayers’ funding?”