The Fox Cities Transit Commission met 06/11/2024. The item that took up most of the meeting’s time was the request to approve the request to reduce evening and Saturday hours for fixed route buses and replace that service with the Valley Transit Connector service to be effective July 15. This change reduces driver manhours by 320 hours a week. The new bus schedule is essentially:
- Monday – Friday: 6AM – 6PM
- Saturday: 8AM – 6PM
The Valley Transit Connector shared ride, demand response service will run:
- Monday – Friday: 4AM – 6AM, 6PM – Midnight
- Saturday: 4AM – 8AM, 1PM – Midnight
The schedule changes have been proposed in response to a persistent lack of bus drivers that has left Valley Transit currently with only 17 of 36 full time driver positions filled.
The commission members expressed disappointment that this step had to be taken, but they recognized that it was a necessary change. They expressed hope that they would in the future be able to increase service, possibly starting with Saturdays. At the same time, it was pointed out during the meeting that service would still be available, just in a different form than the large buses. Commissioner Diane Dexter said, “I think it’s real important to use that word ‘transition’ and not ‘cutting.’”
The commission voted to approve the requested changes with Commissioner Larry Wurdinger voting against approval.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Commissioner Wurdinger started out the discussion by making a motion to have Saturday service end at 6PM rather than the proposed 1PM. That motion failed for lack of a second.
Valley Transit General Manager Ron McDonald explained to the Commission, “This proposal was precipitated by a lack of qualified drivers and anticipated forthcoming Federal Transit Administration regulation change, which limits driving hours to 10 hours per day per driver.” The only reason Valley Transit had been able to continue providing the service it was providing was because drivers were working an excessive amount of overtime.
Mr. McDonald told the Commission that If these changes were not implemented, Valley Transit’s bus service would become unreliable. “[W]e can’t continue to provide the services at the level we’re doing. It’s not healthy and it’s—we can’t continue in a safe manner this way. As of yesterday, we could have very easily have canceled three routes yesterday if we didn’t have our supervisors all driving and forcing somebody on their day off to come in. We’ve been doing that. That’s not sustainable. The workforce is tired. They’ve been very dedicated to keep the service on the street like it is. But it’s it’s—yeah, we’re in a situation where we need to act on something.”
Even when these changes were implemented on July 15, they would need 26 full-time drivers to not have to have drivers working overtime on a regular basis; however, he expected they would only have 18 to start out, so they would still be starting out behind. He did believe that reducing driving hours from 6AM to 6PM would make the job more enticing to prospective employees, and in fact since the proposed changes were announced, the number of applicants had increased.
Commissioner Greg VandeHey asked about the possibility of raising driver pay in order to attract more applicants. Drivers are currently paid around $26 a hour which Commissioner VandeHey felt was low but Manager McDonald said was not low. Commissioner VandeHey thought that if they paid $40 an hour, they would attract a lot more applicants.
General Manager Mcdonald said that he and Human Resources Director Jay Ratchman had several meetings with union representatives and those representatives told them point blank that the issue was not money.
Commissioner VandeHey responded, “I’m just gonna disagree there. Because every everybody’s got a price tag.”
There was discussion about providing education to riders who were going to need to transition to the Connector Service. Valley Transit’s Mobility Manager and its Travel Training Specialist were going to try to provide education to impacted riders on how to use the Connector service.
There was some concern expressed by Commission members that there was not a mobile app for the Connector service, but General Manager McDonald said that they were scheduling an appointment with a software vendor to demo their scheduling app, so something might come of that.
It was also noted in the meeting that the Connector service would be limited to the boundaries of the municipalities that participate in Valley Transit (Appleton, Buchanan, Grand Chute, Kaukauna, Kimberly, Little Chute, Menasha, Fox Crossing, and Neenah). In the past, the Connector serviced a wider area including Greenville and Vinland, but that was due to funds provided by United Way. United Way no longer partners with Valley Transit, so the Connector will now only run in member communities.
The commission voted to approve the proposed service change recommendations.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1195118&GUID=5DDB1000-2A22-40B4-8D2F-97A40D31A9FE
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