Little used bus route in Lockport costs $20 per rider

(Above) NFTA’s Lockport 201 route. (Below) Bus used to take an average 43 customers per day at a cost of about $25 per rider.

Last April, NFTA officials announced they planned to discontinue the 201 Lockport Shuttle bus route in order to help close a $7.1 million operating gap.

Bus route 201 is a city and town of Lockport bus loop route, offering weekday service nine times daily to the Eastern Niagara Hospital, the Tops/Walmart plaza, Kmart and elsewhere. The 201 route is utilized by public housing and mobile home park residents, among others. According to an NFTA sampling of 402 trips, the route averages 39-43 customers per day, less than 5 riders per trip.

Passenger fares bring in only 6 percent of the cost of operating the service, NFTA spokesman C. Douglas Hartmayer said. The bus earns about $52 per day in fares and costs $872 per day to operate, he said.

At around $13,000 per year in income and costing $221,714 per year to run, it costs taxpayers approximately $20 per rider.

Niagara County has been ranked as the highest taxed county in the USA by the Tax Foundation of Washington, DC. In addition to high taxes, the county has other budgetary problems – many of these stemming from high taxes, such as declining revenue, state-mandated increases in employee pension contributions and the need to comply with state law that prohibits raising property taxes more than 2 percent per year.

County Legislator Chairman Bill Ross, while understanding that users of bus route 201 are primarily people who do not have cars and cannot afford to own them, said, "while those 43 people are important, so are the other 213,000 people in the county."

Last week, State Sen. George Maziarz and NFTA commissioner Henry Sloma met at the Dale Association in Lockport with a group of people who plan to protest the NFTA’s plan to cut route 201. Maziarz explained he would work to resolve the issue – which is primarily how to find a way to get people to the store without costing taxpayers $20.

"Maybe we can mesh two routes together," Maziarz said.

The group that met with Maziarz call themselves the "Lockport 201 Coalition," and were joined by members of two Christian activists groups, called the Niagara Organizing Alliance for Hope (NOAH) and VOICE-Buffalo. Because of the planned cut of route 201, these groups are planning to commence a voter registration drive to register public transit riders in Western New York. There are 94,500 daily public transit riders in Western New York.

"Our goal is to engage over 500 transit riders within a three hour period, by talking to them about transit-related issues and registering them to vote, if they have not already," says T.J. Colangelo, Chair of NOAH’s Transportation Task Force. "Our elected officials need to recognize that transit justice will not be overlooked and that transit riders have a vote and a voice."

"We have to address the funding issue and our local officials need to work with us," said Karen Carroll of NOAH and the Lockport 201 Coalition. "We cannot continue to stand idly by while threats are made by the NFTA to reduce and cut off services that enable thousands of residents to get to the doctors, grocery stores, and family visits. This is just not about the livelihood of transit riders in Lockport, this is about the livelihood of transit riders throughout Western New York."

-----------------------------

If there are any groups seeking "taxpayer justice" in a county that is going broke from high taxes, perhaps they should meet with those who are seeking "transit justice." Maybe they can come up with a solution.

How about this? Instead of blowing $221,000 a year for a few dozen people to ride a bus, why not give them the bus, and let them chip in as a group and maintain it?

Ridiculous, you may say.

Is it more ridiculous than blowing $221,000 of people’s hard-earned money to offer bus rides that rival the cost of taxicab rides?

Perhaps a more efficient solution is for the people in the community to come together and help each other out?

If I give you a ride to the store once a week, maybe you can cut my lawn.

Or, if you live too far from the store, consider moving to a place where you can walk to the store.

Stupid, you might say.

Today we can justify spending $20 to bring one person to the store.

But we can’t seem to really consider the concept that “if I live far from water, I need to locate a reliable water supply or move."

Or, "If I live far from food, I need to grow my own or move closer to the food source."

Instead of government always first - as the solution to every person’s problems, how about self-help first, then private charity next? The medicine for weakness is not pandering to weakness or making other people weak by taking more of their money through higher taxes. The remedy for weakness is strength and encouraging strength.

That government is wrong and weakens the people as long as it forcibly confiscates from the enslaved worker.

And it is not the rich who support government, as so many stupidly believe. It is the shrinking middle class and the working poor.

When rich corporations pay higher taxes - they only raise the price of their goods sold and the middle class and poor (while saying “hurrah for taxing the rich”) pay higher prices for the products they need.

Ever notice how little you get at the store for a $100?

This is economics 101: The more government does, the higher it must tax. The higher the taxes, the poorer the people. The middle class and the working poor grow poorer and then need more government services. In turn, taxes are raised. The water level rises as government increases to drown more and more formerly independent people to a life of partial or full government dependence.

I am almost certain that everyone who rides the 201 bus would prefer not to be dependent on others for their rides, and most have no idea it costs taxpayers $20 to give them a lift.

It is also not a coincidence that Niagara County is the highest taxed and one of the poorest counties in the nation. When you consider the natural resources and assets this county has and how poor it is – Niagara is the textbook example of how too much government destroys prosperity.

This route 201 cut and its protest shows how the concept of community is all but lost. An intelligent community would be outraged at paying $20 to take someone to the store.

Come on.

Your neighbors have cars. They are going to the store. Make arrangements for a ride. You have neighbors who do not have cars.

Can’t you get them a lift?

By depending on government, we lose faith in ourselves. That is far worse than going without an overpriced ride to the store.