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04/17/2018 12:00 AMShifting state spending priorities and shortfalls in the Special Transportation Fund that supports transit and transportation grants mean that the 9 Town Transit buses operated by the Estuary Transit District (ETD) faces a $131,000 cut in state funding as of July 1 that will lead to fare increases and service cuts. The proposed cut in ETD state funding represents 15 percent of the transit district’s annual budget.
This troubling news is being discussed across the shoreline. Charlie Norz, Old Saybrook’s representative on the ETD Finance Committee, shared an update with his town’s Board of Selectmen (BOS)last week.
Norz explained that the state Department of Transportation (DOT) is redirecting its increasingly limited funds for public transit away from rural and small-town transit districts like ETD toward rail and intercity bus projects. The higher-priority projects include the MetroNorth rail line and the new Hartford to Springfield rail line. Two bus routes have also been given a high priority: adding bus service from Hartford to Bradley Airport with links to train stations on the new Hartford-Springfield rail line, and increasing bus service between the University of Connecticut-Storrs campus and Hartford.
State funding of the ETD and its 9 Town Transit services are squeezed because the funding source for the state’s Special Transportation Fund is yielding too little to pay for the state’s transportation needs. The fund’s revenue stream comes from a 25-cent-per-gallon tax levied on gasoline and diesel fuel; this tax has not changed since 2000, yet vehicles are now more efficient and use less fuel, so the per-gallon tax doesn’t raise as much money as it once did, while the costs to operate and invest in transportation have risen.
Old Saybrook First Selectman Carl Fortuna, Jr., commented at the BOS meeting that DOT Commissioner James Redeker said recently that if the Special Transportation Fund did not get a fix at the Legislature by the middle of April, DOT could not get new funding in time to avoid making the proposed transit cuts. At press time, no fund fix had yet been agreed upon.
If the State Transportation Fund does not get a fix this year, continuing shortfalls in the fund will mean the ETD could face a 50 percent cut in its state subsidy in the 2019-’20 fiscal year.
“For members of the community that depend on [ETD services], it’s critical. If there’s no [fund] fix, the ETD will fail to exist in 2019-’20,” said Fortuna.
Norz said his view is that raising fares should play a small role in filling the July 1 ETD funding shortfall.
Many 9 Town Transit bus riders are elderly on fixed incomes, students, and retail workers earning near minimum wage who use the bus to get to work. The other ways to fill the funding gap are also are unattractive: eliminating routes based on ridership levels or reducing the frequency of bus runs on some routes.
Of the cuts that ETD is forced to make, due to the state funding shortfall, Norz said, “You’ll have an operational impact, a financial impact, and a social impact.”
The ETD describes on its website estuarytransit.org the current level of service it provides. The 9 Town Transit operates 17 buses on 4 flexible routes (fixed stops with deviations) throughout the region including connections to New Haven, New London, and Middletown. Demand response service (known as Dial-a-Ride) is also available in all nine towns Monday through Friday.