California - News from June 8, 2009

Nearly seven years ago, transportation leaders in Orange County rolled out predawn bus service to help graveyard-shift workers who often found themselves walking or pedaling bikes across the sleeping county as they tried to get home.

Now, with the Orange County Transportation Authority facing severe budget shortfalls, the Night Owl service, which runs from midnight to 4 a.m. on four routes through the heart of the county, is facing elimination.

In addition to cutting the overnight service, the agency is proposing slashing 22% of the county’s bus service by reducing the frequency of nearly 30 routes. Already this year, OCTA has laid off bus drivers, raised fares from $1.25 to $1.50 for a single ride and cut service hours on several lines.

“We have worked so hard and so long trying to build this system up,” said OCTA Chairman Peter Buffa. “To now say, ‘I’m sorry we have to make draconian cuts,’ I can’t tell you how distasteful that is. . . . It hurts thousands who depend on that service across the county every day.”

The transportation agency needs to make up a $33-million shortfall in the coming year’s budget resulting mostly from the elimination of state funds for bus operations and a severe decline in local sales tax revenue, OCTA officials said. If the funding reductions persist, the agency in the next five years faces a funding shortfall of about $275 million.

“Transit systems all over the state have had their legs cut out from under them by the state because of the budget meltdown in Sacramento,” Buffa said.

The Night Owl service was launched in 2002 shortly after Arthur Leahy was hired as the agency’s chief, and patterned after late-night bus routes he started when he was head of the transportation agency in Minneapolis. Leahy now heads the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

In Orange County, the four Night Owl routes have served a largely Latino ridership, mostly factory, hotel and restaurant workers whose shifts end long after regular buses stop running. Before the service was introduced, many workers said, they often walked or biked five miles or more to get home, trudging from Newport Beach or Irvine to Santa Ana and Garden Grove.

Night Owl riders said riding the bus helped them feel safe commuting to and from work in the predawn hours. The lines run north-south from Brea to Newport Beach and La Habra to Costa Mesa, and east-west from central Orange County to Long Beach. They serve about 350 riders a day.

The need for the routes was tested in 2007 during a nine-day bus strike that again left many of the late-night and early morning workers without transportation. Some quickly returned to walking or bicycling, and some enterprising folks started bootleg taxi services to take workers home.

The agency’s board, which has approved cutting 400,000 vehicle service hours in the coming year, will vote today on the proposed first round of cuts, which would take effect in September and account for about a quarter of the cutbacks. There would be more reductions throughout the fiscal year, which starts July 1, officials said.

On Thursday night, dozens of bus riders gathered at the shuttered terminal in Santa Ana in the heart of the Civic Center area to bring attention to the proposed cuts and ask that transportation officials find a way to keep overnight service.

“They have to cut service, there’s no doubt about it,” said Jane Reifer, a riders’ advocate and member of the OCTA’s citizens advisory panel. “We’re asking them to preserve a service that has fewer riders, but it’s a key service. It can make a difference between someone having a job and not.”

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paloma.esquivel@latimes.com