Employees Host Picnic for Foster Children

By Nancy Lamus, Customer Relations Marketing Assistant

This year, as part of our United Way employee fundraising campaign, Community Transit “adopted” an organization for the first time. This meant that employees were given the opportunity to do additional fundraising and participate in additional events with this particular group.

The organization we chose was Hand in Hand. Hand in Hand is a volunteer organization whose sole mission is to help children who are removed from dangerous or unhealthy homes during a crisis. Children are brought to Safe Place, a shelter where they are cared for until a more permanent placement can be found. They provide food, clothing, health care and a safe, loving environment for these children in need.

After learning more about the group, I personally started to volunteer with Hand in Hand. It has been one of the most rewarding “jobs” of my life. I find I look forward to each and every shift, to care for these children and to spend time with the wonderful people who run this organization.

The employees of Community Transit partnered with Hand in Hand for two events this year -- a Christmas party and an old-fashioned family picnic. The picnic was held last Saturday (July 27). It was amazing! With the money raised from an employee waffle feed, we were able to have games, prizes and even a bouncy house for the kids at the picnic. They were all sent home with a personalized frisbee commemorating the event.

Several Community Transit employees volunteered at the picnic. Games sponsored by Community Transit included a duck pond, a bubble pool, a fishing game, potato sack race, a bean bag toss and many more. Every try won a prize! The joy on the faces of the children when they walked on to the field was priceless.

Community Transit’s own Oxy Gene, Defender of Truth Justice and Really Clean Air, made a special appearance. The kids love Oxy and enjoyed his superhero stories.

I am always amazed by the generosity of the employees from Community Transit. Thanks to our CEO Joyce Eleanor, our work with Hand in Hand has created many memorable moments for all of us here at Community Transit. We have managers, directors, office workers, dispatchers, bus drivers and mechanics all sharing in the work to bring joy to these kids. I guess I would ask: Who had more fun? The kids or those of us who were able to participate.

Thanks to the employees of Community Transit who gave this wonderful gift to the children of Snohomish County!

Snohomish County Transit Priorities

The Washington State Legislature is in its final week of a special session with no agreement yet on a possible transportation funding package. If there is no general budget agreement, there may be a second special session.

After cutting service 37 percent the past three years, Community Transit has no plans for further service cuts. Economic activity in Snohomish County is rebounding and the agency is looking ahead to when it can begin to add service. At stake in Olympia is whether the pace of service growth will be slow or quick.

Recently, Community Transit CEO Joyce Eleanor spoke with several local audiences about the prospect of service growth, as well as other transit issues.

As the agency embarks on a summer filled with community events, staff will be asking area residents their opinions on transit priorities. What are your priorities for service growth?

Listen to Community Transit CEO Joyce Eleanor and Everett Transit Director Tom Hingson discuss The Future of Transit in Snohomish County on KSER Radio (90.3 FM), recorded May 24, 2013.

KSER Interview (mp3)



Watch Community Transit CEO Joyce Eleanor speak to the Snohomish County Committee for Improved Transportation at Everett Station, recorded May 21, 2013.

State Senate Considers Transit Bill

The Washington Senate Transportation Committee yesterday heard testimony on SB 5773 which would authorize a local motor vehicle excise tax (MVET) to support Community Transit service, if approved by voters. The bill was introduced by Sen. Nick Harper of Everett.

Those testifying in favor of the bill included Joe Marine, Mayor of Mukilteo and chair of the Community Transit Board of Directors, Community Transit CEO Joyce Eleanor, and representatives from United Way, Economic Alliance Snohomish County, Workforce Development Council, Boeing Machinists Union (IAM), UW and Transportation Choices Coalition.

The bill allows Community Transit to seek up to one percent MVET on car registrations within the service district, which is most of Snohomish County excluding Everett. CEO Joyce Eleanor says such funding could be used to bring back Sunday and late-night bus service, and that any specific service plan would go through a public process with input from riders.

In opposition to the bill, Michael Ennis of the Association of Washington Businesses said the AWB wanted the MVET funding source to remain part of a statewide transportation package, and not “peeled off” to benefit one agency.

SB 5773 is the first of several proposals that could fund Community Transit service. A companion “local option” bill has been introduced in the House, while a separate statewide “roads and transit” transportation funding package was announced yesterday by House Transportation Committee Chair Judy Clibborn.

Fare Increase Proposed for February 2013

The Community Transit Board of Directors has proposed a fare increase that would take effect on Feb. 1, 2013. The proposal would raise fares by 25 cents on local bus service, 50 cents on south county commuter bus service and 75 cents on north/east county commuter bus service (Routes 421, 422, 424, 425 and 821).

DART paratransit fares would go up 25 cents and vanpool fares would increase 10-15 percent based on the vehicle.

The fare increase is intended to keep revenues in line with inflation; in other words to pay for existing service not new service. Local and DART fares were last increased in June 2010; commuter and vanpool fares were last increased in October 2008.

As a service agency, Community Transit must bring in as much revenue as it spends to operate service. In recent years the agency was spending more than it brought in as sales tax revenues took a nosedive. The result was two major service reductions totaling 37 percent of bus service and 206 employee layoffs.

To help prevent the agency from landing in the same predicament, a Six-Year Transit Development Plan approved in early 2011 called for regular fare increases every two years. This first fare increase was to have been implemented this fall, but CEO Joyce Eleanor chose to push back the proposal to Feb. 2013 to provide some relief to riders who have endured so many cuts.

Still, the fare increases are an important revenue tool to keep the agency afloat. In 2011, fares paid for 18.5 percent of the cost of operating the agency's service. If the proposal is approved, that rate would rise to 21 percent in 2013. In other words, even with the fare increase about 79 percent of the cost of each bus trip (on average - some trips cost more than others) are paid for by sales taxes and other revenue.

Finally, while the agency has no near-term plans to add bus service, there will be 30 commuter trips added in Feb. 2013 thanks to a federal CMAQ (Congestion Management and Air Quality) grant. Even the 20 percent local match for that grant is paid for - by a small new pot of transit money authorized by the state legislature this year.

Here's how you can comment on the fare proposal.

When Your CEO is your Talent: Delivering the Service Change Message

By Karen Johnson, Video & Design Supervisor

“Joyce, please do that line over again and pause after the word ‘customers.’”

The talent, Joyce Eleanor, is our CEO. The video team - two of her employees from Customer Relation’s Marketing Division - create the concept, draft the script, produce, direct and edit the production, and then post it to the website. The topic is the upcoming February 2012 Service Change.

Joyce is a passionate and effective communicator. As the face of our agency, she speaks from her heart. Her message is authentic because she’s talking about the agency she leads, and the employees - her employees - who have lost their jobs. She has listened to the riders who are deeply impacted by the service cuts. Any other spokesperson would be unacceptable.

Producing a video to deliver information about service changes is just one way we use video on our website as a tool for our customers. We have also developed How to Ride videos in several languages for our customers, as well as another to become familiar with Swift bus rapid transit. Community Transit riders and civic leaders also contributed their own video storytelling testimonials in their own words.

Community Transit’s training division uses our videos during employee orientation to acquaint new staff with policies and agency culture. Plans for 2012 include instructional video shorts – brief, simple videos that demonstrate how to use our Trip Planner, how to use Swift, and a variety of other useful services. We recently created an online Video Gallery that contains all the videos we’ve produced.

Videos provide the opportunity for broad messaging in a timely manner to our many audiences.
And because we produce the videos entirely in-house, we are able to be responsive and accurate, at no cost to the agency other than staff resources.

“Cut! Great job, Joyce. But I need you to do that line one more time.”

Public Hearing Summary from July 7

About 70 people turned out for the Community Transit Board of Directors public hearing last night on proposed service cuts to take effect in February 2012. A total of 31 people testified.

Seven people testified in favor of bringing back Sunday bus service. They ranged from a single mom who says it’s hard for her to keep or get a job with no reliable transportation on Sundays to DART paratransit customers who have no way to get around those days.

There were five riders commenting on Route 422, which serves Stanwood-Seattle. Each of the five riders testified against Alternative III, which would increase the number of Route 422 trips from three to four but would have the route run only to the Lynnwood Transit Center. From there, riders would transfer to buses running to and from Seattle.

Open Houses Begin Tonight

The first of the community open house meetings to discuss the 2012 System Change alternatives begins tonight from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Mountlake Terrace Library.

Riders and members of the public are invited to stop in at any time to talk to staff about the three proposals for a 20 percent service cut. If you haven't already checked out the 2010 system change page on our website, please do so you can come equipped with your questions.

CEO Joyce Eleanor had a column in Sunday's Herald talking about the necessity for these cuts and how the agency must prepare to transform for the future, given the new economic reality. If the agency is left to rely on sales taxes and fares for its revenue it could be a long time before any growth occurs. The agency continues to work with state legislators and federal officials to find new streams of funding for Community Transit and transit in general.

Following tonight's meeting there will be a daytime open house at Edmonds Community College from 2-4 p.m. Tuesday.

We hope to see many of you there.

Transit Values Exercise gets at vision, values

Just a week ago Thursday, CEO Joyce Eleanor announced Community Transit will have to cut service 20 percent in 2012. The word got out fast. At a transit values exercise on Saturday, nearly every person in the room raised their hand when Joyce asked if they had heard the news. (The others quickly turned to the person next to them and said, “They’re doing what?”)
Ninety people participated in the four transit values exercises held this month. Gearing up for these public sessions, the exercise had been conducted on about 150 employees as it was being developed in February and March.
The exercise is not about deciding which routes to cut or save, it is about the trade-offs that go into cutting service. For instance, if you cut bus frequencies you’re also going to cut ridership. If you want high efficiency you’re going to have to cut geographic coverage.

A Bad News Day

It was a bad news day for CommunityTransit, and our riders. CEO Joyce Eleanor hosted a press conference yesterday to describe the agency’s financial situation and the necessity for significant budget cuts in 2012.

You can read her full speech on our website – and probably saw parts of it on the evening news.

This is just the beginning of a long process to develop service alternatives (going on right now), get public input on them in June, host a public hearing before our board in July and get a final decision from the board in September. The cuts themselves won’t take place until February 2012.

Other transit agencies in Washington are facing similar financial woes due to the recession.

Buy Local for Transit Kickoff

This morning at the Alderwood Mall, Community Transit CEO Joyce Eleanor was joined by Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon and business owners to kickoff the Buy Local for Transit program.

Flanked by the Santa display in the back and Made in Washington store on the side, it was a great beginning to what will hopefully be a long-term effort to convince our riders and all county residents to keep their shopping dollars local. That alone can help our local economy, and help Community Transit.

Reardon made the point that this decade Snohomish County has been one of the fastest growing local economies in the nation. We have attracted new industries, and our housing market remains higher than the national average. It will be great if residents now respond to this call to action with their wallets!

To answer a question from the last post on this issue, in 2007 Community Transit collected about $76.5 million from sales taxes; in 2010 we're on track to collect about $62 million. Our forecast for 2011 is not much better as we expect to bring in just under $63 million.

Will Buy Local for Transit make a difference? We can't predict that, but we're hopeful. And if we didn't try we would not be doing the best for our customers.

Buy Local for Transit

On Thursday, Community Transit will kick off its Buy Local for Transit program to educate riders and the public about how the local economy impacts transit funding, and to involve them in turning things around.

A news conference will take place at 10 a.m. at Alderwood Mall to announce the program. Community Transit CEO Joyce Eleanor will be joined by Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon and local business owners to tout the benefits of the program. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

The concept is simple. Encouraging transit users and everyone else to do their shopping in Community Transit’s service district can bring more money to the agency. Community Transit’s primary source of funding is a 0.9 percent share of sales tax generated in the communities it serves (9 cents on a $10 purchase). It was the decline in sales tax revenue during the recession that led to the agency's service cut this past June.

Local businesses also benefit as this program drives more customers into their stores. Cities and the county will benefit from the increased taxes and activity this business creates in their jurisdictions.

Community Transit’s service district includes 19 cities and towns as well as much of unincorporated Snohomish County. Notably, it does not include Everett, which has its own transit agency.

While shopping at any store or restaurant in the service district will help Community Transit, a number of businesses will partner with the agency by offering special discounts to Buy Local for Transit customers. A list of those businesses and their offers will be available online. To get the discount, shoppers will need to show either an ORCA regional fare card or an “I Buy Local for Transit” card that can be downloaded at www.communitytransit.org/BuyLocal.

At the news conference on Thursday, 100 I Buy Local for Transit cards will be handed out. The more people who get these cards, the more likely they will be to seek out BLT discounts and shop locally.

Also, Buy Local for Transit offers one of the first non-transit benefits for ORCA card users. Just show your ORCA card at a participating business and you can get a discount that others can’t. If you ride transit and don’t yet have an ORCA card (which saves you money on transfers), here’s one more reason to get your card now!

If you know of a business that would be interested in participating, refer them to www.communitytransit.org/BuyLocal to sign up.

CEO Joyce Eleanor Testifies in D.C.

An exciting day for Community Transit!

CEO Joyce Eleanor this morning testified before the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in Washington, D.C. She discussed how Community Transit has spent the $17.5 million it received last year in federal stimulus funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

Joyce was one of two transit agency representatives on a panel that included an electrician from bus manufacturer New Flyer of America, the director of Baltimore's public works department and a construction worker from Columbus, Indiana.

She described the four Community Transit projects funded by the ARRA federal stimulus money:
Bus replacement - 23 double decker bus purchases, $10.7 million
Operations and preventative maintenance funding, $3.3 million
Bus replacement - hybrid bus cost differential, $3 million
Mountlake Terrace Transit Center parking lot redevelopment, $425,000

Joyce was introduced by U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Larsen was a member of the Community Transit Board of Directors when he was a Snohomish County Councilmember.

Joyce was asked by Committee Chair Rep. Jim Oberstar about the flexibility for transit agencies to use some federal funding for operations, not just capital. Joyce replied that flexibility is good but agencies still need capital funding to replace aging vehicles and facilities. More funding overall is needed, especially during these tough economic times.

See Joyce's testimony here. (Joyce starts about 1 hour and 15 minutes in.)
Read Joyce's testimony here.

CEO To Testify Before Congressional Committee

Community Transit CEO Joyce Eleanor has been invited to testify tomorrow morning (Sept. 29) before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in Washington, D.C.

Because Community Transit received federal stimulus funds last year, Joyce will be giving the Committee an update on our use of those funds. This is a rare opportunity for Joyce to address this important funding committee.

The hearing will be webcast live at http://transportation.house.gov/

In 2009, Community Transit received $17.5 million in federal stimulus funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

$10.7 million was spent on the purchase of 23 replacement buses, which will be put into service near the end of 2010. The buses ordered are double decker buses that will go into commuter service to downtown Seattle.

$3.3 million was used for operations and preventative maintenance, which is allowed under the flexible funding formula. This helped prevent service cuts in 2009, rather than June of this year.

$3 million was used to pay the difference between hybrid buses and standard diesel for a 24-bus replacement order placed this year. This TIGGER grant will allow Community Transit to put 15 hybrid buses into local service in 2011.

$425,000 was used for redevelopment of the upper parking lot at the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center. This project was completed last month.