Transit crisis comes as bus loads lighter, drivers leaving

Morale among bus drivers at the region’s commuter transit agency is low.

It’s the kind of mood you would expect from employees if your bosses, the heads of the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation, are heard in public, and in the media talking about a “doomsday scenario” where operations as you know them could come to an end.

It’s no joke that PRTC faces a $9.2 million budget shortfall every year over the next five years. If state and local leaders don’t find the money, the transit system that thousands of residents, federal workers, and carpoolers (Slugs as they’re called in Northern Virginia) rely on could be blown up, changed, and rerouted to only ferry commuters to Metro stations.

All of this comes at a time when some drivers who trained at PRTC are leaving to make more money driving buses for other agencies.

“They’re leaving us and going to work in Fairfax, driving buses for Fairfax Connector, where they can make a starting wage of $18 an hour,” said Emory Large, the AFSCME Union Chairman, who represents bus drivers for PRTC.

PRTC contracts its bus drivers from Ohio-based First Transit, Inc. It will spend more than 40% of its $56 million operating budget for 2017 on this agreement.

Those are staggering numbers when you learn that PRTC is one of only a small number of companies that offers paid training to new employees to get their CDL licenses, said Large.

Drivers for PRTC are making more than they did a few years ago. New drivers start out making about $15 an hour. Drivers won a 45 cent per hour raise this year, and a 75 cents per hour increase in 2018 and 2019, during a contract negotiation last summer, he added.

The transit crisis also comes in wintertime, when fewer riders are taking the bus. Whether it’s low gas prices and people opting to drive or carpool, or because they don’t want to stand outside at a cold bus stop, the lighter loads are noticeable.

“I run the evening bus from the Pentagon to Dale City, and some days I might get 15 people, some days I might get 20,” said Large.

That’s on commuter buses typically built for between 47 and 57 people.

“I think PRTC could run a little lighter on service than what they are doing now to save some cash, but, C’mon, people who work in D.C. know what a good value this service is. It costs $12 to $13 a day, and you don’t have to pay for parking,” Large added.

PRTC Interim Executive Director Eric Marx said cutting service is something he doesn’t want to do, but it may be inevitable. Ending service to Capitol Hill, some trips on the South Route 1 Woodbridge bus, and some trips between Dale City and Washington, as well as higher fares are just the tip of the iceberg.

Woodbridge District Supervisor Frank Principi, who is now head of the PRTC Board of Commissioners, told officials Prince William County budget wonks are searching for an additional $6 million in the upcoming budget to appropriate to PRTC.

“For the $6 million, I think it’s a good sign they’re looking to find the cash. Some are saying we might not get all of it, some say we might get more,” Marx told a group of Prince William County residents at a public hearing Wednesday.

The $6 million won’t close the funding gap, but it will help, Marx added.

Prince William County stopped providing general funding to PRTC in 2008 when gas prices were higher, which meant more money was being generated from the state’s motor fuels tax to fund the system, and the agency had a big reserve fund. That fund is depleted. Couple that with falling gas prices that seem to have no end in sight, and you wind up with a cash-strapped agency.

You also wind up with bus riders who rely on the service to get them from point A to point B, could be out of a job.

Allison Detrick has vision problems and works in Washington, D.C. She bought her house in Lake Ridge to be close to a PRTC OmniRide bus stop.

“If you remove the neighborhood routing, I won’t be able to get to the bus…if you remove service on holidays, I am not a federal employee, I work in the private sector, so I don’t have off of these days, I won’t be able to get work,” said Detrick.

If the OmniLink local buses go away, senior citizens will also be impacted.

“I’m a senior, and I don’t’ drive anymore. I have a friend [who can drive], but you can’t depend on that all the time. And you have a taxi, but you can’t afford it. I use the bus to go to the doctor and go to Walmart; that’s what I use it for,” said Judi Atkins, of Flotilla Way in Woodbridge.

Wednesday’s public hearing was the second in a series of four meetings designed to solicit feedback from the public on the proposed service reductions. The fourth and final meeting is scheduled Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at Manassas City Hall.

Prince William County — the county with the most users of the PRTC commuter bus service — has until the end of April to come up with its new budget, and to see if they have the additional money to help close the funding gap.