On a chilly Wednesday morning, retired Renoite Chuck Gover shivers outside Meadowood Mall waiting for his bus. Looking off into the distance, he tells us, "I don't know what the problem is with #12. Always late, never on time." Chuck has been riding the RTC Ride routes for several years now. He crisscrosses town for shopping and seeing the doctor and friends. The one thing he'd like to see? Less waiting. As he put it, "Have the buses show up more often. I've been sitting out here for 30 minutes."
A few feet away, Christopher Tontimonia has a pet peeve too. He's been riding since the Citifare days. His route is a bit of an ordeal: "At night when I'm coming back because I get off late at work, you could be stuck out here for an hour...yeah."
Nearby, RTC is there to listen. Its Open House tour has been making stops all week, getting feedback from riders. Transit Planner Michael Dulude told me, "The RTC's getting public input for some proposed changes that we plan on doing for service, fares and for the access service."
Michael and other RTC bigwigs say they will listen to your wish lists at these stops. They really want to get more people riding, and they know to do that you need friendlier fares. Michael has an example: "Reducing the 7-day pass by $5…that will help."
Here's what they propose: Besides dropping the 7-day pass to $14.50, they want to reduce the 24-hour pass (Day Pass) to $3...the senior and youth 31-day passes to $26, and lower the age to get the senior fare from 65 to 60. The basic $2 adult fare stays the same. More price reductions, because their true goal is to fill the seats. As Dulude put it, "We're banking on the idea of more volume equals more money."
Still, as we found, there's no shortage of armchair RTC CEO's. Paul Sherman likes the fare changes. But he wants more buses south of Meadowood. He tells me, "The amount of service that goes through that area is nowhere near keeping up."
The RTC says creating more demand for routes will do just that...attracting new riders without losing the ones they already have. Like Chuck, who's bus finally came in.
There's one more open house Thursday morning (the 22nd) starting at 7:00 at downtown Reno's 4th Street bus station.
