Short Range Transit Plan 2008-2013 - Omnitrans

IBI GROUP
FOREWORD
SHORT RANGE TRANSIT PLAN REPORT
OMNITRANS COMPREHENSIVE OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT
& SHORT RANGE TRANSIT PLAN
The provision of Omnitrans transit services in Southwestern San Bernardino County is at a critical juncture. On
the one hand, transit continues to provide an essential social service, providing youths, seniors, and low-income
workers who have limited or no access to an automobile with the means to access employment, educational,
medical and social destinations. With road congestion continuing to increase in the County, and with it concerns
about air quality and global warming, transit will be asked to shoulder a growing share of trip making.
At the same time, the provision of high-quality, cost-effective transit services in the Omnitrans service area has
never been more challenging. In the simplest of terms, ridership has been decreasing over the past several
years, while costs have been increasing. There are many factors contributing to this situation, only some of which
are in the direct control of Omnitrans. On the ridership side, while population and employment in the service area
have continued to grow at a robust pace, they have continued to do so largely at the margins of the urbanized
area, in single-family subdivisions and suburban business parks that are difficult to serve effectively if at all.
Despite this, Omnitrans has been able to grow ridership in the quickly-developing West Valley, but that growth
has been offset by job losses in the older East Valley communities, with the recent loss of key anchors such as
the Carousel Mall and other retailers and office uses in downtown San Bernardino. Additionally, increasing
congestion has significantly lowered the reliability of Omnitrans services in certain corridors at certain times of
day, particularly in the East Valley where the system relies of a high number of route-to-route transfers. Finally,
while Omnitrans is achieving its systemwide “pullout” goal (which measures missed trips due to personnel or
mechanical reasons), any missed trip further erodes reliability and therefore ridership.
The combination of decreasing ridership and increasing costs has led to a situation where Omnitrans is under
threat of not meeting its State-mandated farebox recovery target of 20%, a situation that would exacerbate the
current situation by endangering a key source of operating funds. Addressing the factors that have jeopardized
achieving the mandated farebox recovery target will be a multi-year effort.
This Short Range Transit Plan represents the first necessary step towards putting Omnitrans back on the road of
increasing ridership and controlling costs. Reflecting the current financial situation, the plan presents a realistic,
fiscally conservative scenario. First and foremost, it presents a series of service reductions and restructurings,
and fare increases, aimed at not merely meeting the 20% farebox recovery ratio, but providing Omnitrans with a
safety cushion to buffer against future cost spikes or ridership decreases, incrementally working towards a
recovery ratio of 25% in the six-year timeframe of the Plan. The need to provide such a buffer effectively means
that, using the conservative assumptions of the Plan, Omnitrans cannot be assumed to grow ridership until 2012,
when the sbX Bus Rapid Transit system begins service.
However, the Plan does provide some of the tools necessary to put Omnitrans once more on a healthy path of
ridership growth. For example, while the recommended service reductions and restructuring will result in a shortterm
drop in ridership, they will also free resources (buses and drivers), some of which can be redeployed to
improve reliability in the corridors and times of day when this is an issue. If these strategies are successful,
ridership will see an improvement. Also, in 2008 Omnitrans will undertake an update of its Strategic Plan which
will look at all aspects of how Omnitrans conducts its business, with a view to revamping the organization to better
utilize funding and resources. While this Short Range Transit Plan must be conservative and therefore cannot
account for the potential cost savings from the Strategic Plan, it is likely that Omnitrans will be able to realize such
savings, meaning that more resources can be put into new or expanded services. To this end, in the two
Unconstrained Scenarios that are also a part of this Short Range Transit Plan, a menu of new services is
provided. These include options such as reinstating the reduced services, further improvements in Omnitrans’
core system (aimed at providing more consistent headways and spans of service), pilot projects to serve
emerging Transit-Oriented Development areas, the extension of service to new high-density areas, and the
provision of “precursor” limited-stop services along the sbX and other future Bus Rapid Transit corridors.
This Short Range Transit Plan therefore fulfills two key objectives – a short-term plan to put Omnitrans once again
on a solid financial footing, and the long-range service concepts that provide a blueprint for growing ridership
once the immediate challenges are overcome.
July 11, 2007
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