WE CANT KEEP WAITING FOR THE BUS.
April 23rd, 2024 Update:
The City of Charlottesville passed their 2024-25 budget last Monday, April 15th, and included 8 new drivers in that budget! When the city’s budget process started, there were no drivers in the budget. Without the nearly 300 people at the Rally, and the many who showed up to speak in favor of bus drivers at the city budget hearings, the funding would not have been allocated. 8 drivers is still not enough to get to the goal of 15 minute wait times or to even pre-pandemic standards, but it is a step in the right direction. Our collective power works!
March 28th, 2024 Update:
On Charlottesville’s 2 most used bus routes, CAT Routes 5 and 7, average wait times are 30 minutes at best. This means people cannot rely on the bus to get to work, worship services, medical appointments, or anywhere else
We need Charlottesville City Council and CAT to reduce wait times to 15 minutes so that people can actually rely on the bus to get around. To make this a reality, the first thing we need is more bus drivers; CAT needs at least 70 bus drivers to be fully staffed and lower wait times, but the draft budget for 2025 only includes enough money for 59 bus driver positions. We also need more buses; there are at least 4 brand new full-size buses as well as other smaller vehicles just sitting in the lot waiting to receive CAT branding and radios.
On February 26th at our Rally with over 200 people, we asked City Councilors Natalie Oschrin and Michael Payne to 1) introduce a budget amendment in the upcoming budget review process to ensure the Fiscal Year 2025 budget includes funding for 70 bus driver positions, 2) Direct CAT staff to get 6 new vehicles out on the road on Routes 5 and 7 (3 on each route) by September 1, 2024, and 3) meet with IMPACT members prior to the Fiscal Year 2025 budget being finalized to update us on the inclusion of funding in the budget for 11 additional drivers and the status of the new vehicles. Councilors Oschrin and Payne said “yes” to all three!
On March 21st we attended a City Council Budget Hearing to share testimonies to how difficult it is to use CAT and demand that they make budget amendments to bring routes 5 and 7 down to 15 minutes.
Contact us to find out how you can get involved.
THE PROBLEM
Climate change is a global problem that is already having many local effects such as worsening storms and heat waves in our area. Climate scientists have found that, to avoid the worst effects of climate change, we must cut carbon emissions in half by 2030. In our region, transportation is the single largest source of carbon emissions. Most of those emissions are caused by cars. For decades our leaders have deprioritized investments in public transit and have led us to a situation today where our community is now over reliant on cars. If Charlottesville & Albemarle County are going to meaningfully address climate change, improving our public transit system must be a priority.
Right now, public transit in our community is unreliable, inefficient, and often unsafe for people to use. The average wait time for a bus is over half an hour, which means that people cannot rely on the bus to get to work, medical appointments, or run daily errands. Most of the bus stops in the city & county are badly outdated. Very few have any shelter from the rain and sun, and if a bus stop has a bench, many are dangerously placed too close to the road. In the county, a bus stop is more likely to be a sign in the dirt than it is to have any sort of bench or shelter. To address climate change we need to get people out of their cars and into public transit, but that cannot happen unless public transit is a safe and reliable option.
Those who rely on public transit are disproportionately low income and people of color. In addition to stemming the tide of climate, improving public transit will also ensure that those most in need in our community are able to have reliable and safe transportation.
WHAT WE WANT IN THE CITY & COUNTY
To make sure that transit is a safe and reliable option, the top priority is to bring down wait times, and to do that the solution is straightforward: we need more bus drivers. Right now, Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) has 59 drivers, and needs AT LEAST 11 more bus drivers to be fully staffed. Both Charlottesville & Albemarle County officials have said climate change is a top priority. If we want to be a community that is serious about this, we need to fully fund public transit and stop being over-dependent on cars.