AC Transit Board To Vote On Proposed Service Cuts

OAKLAND (BCN) -- AC Transit's board of directors will meet Wednesday night to consider a proposal to cut weekend bus service nearly in half and make other service reductions in order to balance the agency's budget.

Agency officials say that reducing weekend and late-night service would save the district about $11.1 million annually, and outsourcing paratransit services for seniors and the disabled would save as much as $760,000 a year.

Weekend service cuts would eliminate about 90 union jobs, and another 65 positions could be transferred to other service providers if the paratransit services are outsourced, according to the bus agency, which serves many parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

AC Transit said outsourcing paratransit services would save money without reducing those services.

The agency said it needs to make service cuts because it faces a $56 million budget deficit. AC Transit has made other service cuts and raised its fares in recent years in order to help balance its budget.

After contract negotiations with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 192 collapsed, AC Transit imposed a new contract in July that it said would have saved $1.2 million a month and staved off more service cuts.

But a judge ruled that the bus agency must honor the terms of the old contract while the two sides engage in binding arbitration aimed at reaching a new contract.

AC Transit Interim General Manager Mary King said in a statement this week, "The declining economy, coupled with funding losses from the state and federal governments and the refusal of our bus drivers' union leadership to compromise in contract negotiations, has placed the district in a very difficult financial situation."

But ATU Local 192 chief negotiator Claudia Hudson, whose union represents more than 1,600 employees, including abut 1,200 bus drivers, said, "AC Transit's proposed cuts are an unfair burden on bus riders and totally unnecessary."

Hudson said, "We're supposed to be bargaining in good faith, not passing the buck to riders. It's time to sit down and lock in savings, not lock out riders."

The board will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday at AC Transit headquarters at 1600 Franklin St. in Oakland.

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