With latest budget crisis, PSTA shows there’s not much left to cut

The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority has the lowest operating budget in the country among similarly sized agencies, according to an annual analysis.

PSTA’s per capita spending is just $67, the lowest of all agencies analyzed in this year’s American Bus Benchmarking Group chart. Despite its dead-last funding, PSTA has only the fifth lowest ridership, meaning it is stretching its dollars to maximize the amount of service it offers.

This is important because the agency is facing a huge decision — whether to cut service or raise revenue — as a budget deficit of more than $1 million looms.

PSTA staff analyzed its current routes and service levels and identified three routes to eliminate and another three to reduce in order to save $800,000 a year. The agency estimates the changes would affect about 1,000 riders.

The routes chosen are ones with lower ridership. They serve areas like downtown to Tyrone Mall and west St. Pete as well as Seminole. But for the riders who use them, it’s a lifeline. Riders showed up with petitions in hand last week begging for the agency to find another way to solve its budget problems.

The “live within your means” mantra chanted by those opposed to raising taxes to fund transit is already a thing. There are little, if any, efficiencies left to find within the agency without cutting service.

“We completely agree that PSTA must live within its means,” said PSTA spokeswoman Whitney Fox. “But at some point you have to ask, what does the community want? Does it want a good system or something as limited as it currently is now?”

The agency has already combined and refigured various routes to get rid of duplicates. It eliminated the Jolley Trolley route in Safety Harbor and reduced service in the small downtown there because it’s a little used service in the mostly affluent area. See a full list of these types of changes below.

In addition, PSTA has sought out innovative new services to cut costs. It launched a partnership with Uber about two years ago that allows transportation disadvantaged people to use the ride sharing service after hours. That eliminated the need for late night service and the agency was able to qualify for grants to fund it.

As PSTA CEO Brad Miller put it in last week’s meeting, “there’s just nothing left to cut.”

The Board of Directors present at that meeting all agreed that further cutting routes was a bad idea. It would affect people who rely on transit and don’t have other transportation options and it would discourage future ridership at a time when societies are grappling with how to get people out of their cars.

“It just makes our system more inefficient and contributes even more to the stigma of transit being a low quality experience,” said St. Pete City Council member and board member Darden Rice.

The members suggested instead continuing to use reserve funds to cover the budget shortfall in the immediate future while working to identify a stop-gap funding measure that will buy even more time until the agency can identify longer-term funding options. The request at hand is to raise the local gas tax 5 cents.

Quick action — either through route cuts or the stop-gap — are crucial for PSTA’s future.

“The use of our reserves is not the best solution,” said PSTA CFO Debbie Leous.

Reserve funds are used for capital projects,l” which we enjoy for many years to come,” Leous said. Those funds also allow the agency to target federal and state matching grants. They’ve done that to purchase several new low or no emission buses, for example.

Without those reserves, the agency would only fall into further financial trouble later down the road.

All of this begs an important question — will the agency seek another referendum? Greenlight Pinellas was an initiative that took years to put together. There were months of initial stakeholder meetings that began more than five years before the referendum even made the ballot. There were robust studies that identified the most effective transit routes and modes. And the measure had broad backing from a bipartisan coalition of local elected officials and business leaders.

Yet it still tanked.

PSTA Board Chair Janet Long wouldn’t rule out the possibility, but she also made it clear there was no certainty either way.

Still, as Pinellas County Commissioner Dave Eggers pointed out, if the agency goes around slashing routes another referendum might surely fall victim to the same fate.

“We have to provide alternatives for the whole county because if at some point we decide we want to go talk about some other source of permanent funding you better be having something for a quarter of the county that does vote for any kind of referendum,” Eggers said.

Here are the routes PSTA has already reconfigured to cut costs 

— Truncated Route 52 at Grand Central (eliminated segment to downtown SP) 

— Separated Route 19 into two new routes Route 19 (north of Largo) and Route 34 (south of Largo) and decreased freq. on north end

— Separated Route 59 into two new routes Route 59 (East Bay) and Route 9 (9th Street) and decreased freq. on Route 9. Interlined new Route 59 with Route 4 at PSTA HQ.

— Consolidated Route 66 with Jolley Trolley Coastal north of Clearwater Terminal, created New Route 65 south of Clearwater Terminal with portion of Route 74

— Separated the Rt. 74 at Gateway Mall into two routes – New Route 74 to Seminole City Center and New Route 16 on 16th  St. from downtown St. Pete to Gateway Mall via 16th St. also Combined segments of Rt. 74 & 66 into new Rt 65 service from Seminole City Center to Downtown Clearwater Terminal (Park Street Terminal)

— Streamlined Rt 79 remove segment serving Pasadena Hospital

— Eliminated Rt. 444

— Eliminated Rt. 97 & 98 add trips to 52 / 52LX (limited Stops)  

— Extend Rt. 11 weekend service from Pinellas Park Transit Center to PSTA HQ

— Extended Route 61 from Dunedin  to serve Westfield Countryside Mall Clearwater

— Extended Rt. 300X to serve Tampa Int’l Airport.