The $600 million plan to put streetcars back on to Austin streets is having public meetings this week and next! It's a proposal that promises to further gut bus system, the bulk of Capital Metro, for the benefit of the few streetcar riders. Please show up if you live close to these areas and care about your bus service!

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Contact:
Austin Van Zant, (512) 934-2841
or
Glenn Gaven, (512) 220-8227
info@busatx.org

BUS RIDERS TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE ON HIGHER BUS FARES

The Bus Riders Union of Austin, Texas, ADAPT of Texas, PODER, and other community organizations today will address the public before the Capital Metro board of directors will take their final vote on raising transit fares.

When: 3:30 pm, today!

Where: 2910 E. 5th Street, Capital Metro Headquarters (5th and Pleasant Valley)

Its August 21, 2008, Thursday and Capital Metro is changing its Schedules on Sunday, August 24, there are no individual buss line schedules on any of the busses I have been on, at least two to four times a day over the last week, on at least 5 separate lines, including # 1, the most used of routes, nor at any of the libraries I been to. I was downtown today so I made a point of going over to the Capital Metro office to get some new schedule books, the only place I know you allowed to buy them.

In late June, CNN reported that the US House of Representatives passed a bill appropriating $1.7 billion to lower transit fares and expand services. The bill has remained in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs since then.

After many discussions about the worst bus stops in Austin, a contest is in order. We will accept nominations for the worst stops in town for a month or so, and reveal the top ten at a Capital Metro Board meeting prior to passage of the budget for 2009, which purportedly contains funding for bus stop improvements.

Capital Metro staff is at it again: being frustratingly obstructionist to an honest discussion of their finances. Last year we heard that they would encounter a $410 million shortfall. Then earlier this year, Capital Metro would come into a $600 million surplus over the next two decades. Then, last Monday, Councilmember Brewster McCracken started crying that Capital Metro will be broke yet again, despite the massive surplus, hence fare increases are necessary.

On Monday, around 60-70 bus riders came to state their case against any higher bus fares, a mandate that the Local Government Advisory Committee (LGAC) largely ignored, though not completely. Members of the disabled and elderly communities gained a partial victory when, at the last minute, an amendment was tacked on to eliminate the proposed 35 cent fares for seniors and the disabled. Though we can be happy that these fares remain unchanged, we must not stop until all fare increases are halted.

More PODER documents are now in HTML online, available at our PODER Documents page. These new documents are from PODER's BRU in the mid- to late 90's.

The Texas RioGrande Legal Aid has stated that the proposed Capital Metro Fare Increases Violate Civil Rights Act.