Evaluate service, costs of TheBus

Honolulu officials are trying to strike a difficult balance between meeting the need for an essential service — bus transportation — and managing the city’s rising costs, largely due to the increasingly expensive diesel fuel that powers those buses.

This effort took effect this week as the city Department of Transportation Services rolled out the first batch of changes to its bus timetables that, without further tweaking, could discourage bus ridership. Avoiding such an outcome should be the goal of continuing surveillance gauging the impact of the changes. Engagement with community leaders must continue to find ways of keeping the bus a practical means of transit for Oahu’s commuters.

Some of the loudest outcries about the changes to 13 routes came from riders of the one serving the most remote communities, Route 55, formerly known as the "Circle Island" service. The route, which serves the North Shore, Windward Oahu and Wahiawa, had off-peak service cut from a bus every 30 minutes to hourly.

One problem is the definition of "off-peak." For riders boarding in Wahiawa who miss the 6:02 a.m. bus, another won’t be coming along for an hour. That seems awfully early to be the tail end of the peak travel period for the morning, and DTS should consider further adjustments.

Neighborhood board members in the service areas are planning meetings with officials to air some other ideas that may be fruitful, such as keeping up frequency but using the coast service more as a circulator shuttle, linking it to connecting routes. In addition, the rerouting of the Nos. 55 and 65, leaving no service for those who live between the Hygienic Store and Ahuimanu, should be rectified so that people won’t have such a long distance to walk.

These are potential short-term fixes, but a larger discussion is needed on how the bus service is structured and financed. City Council members and DTS officials should explore changes to the mix on the city fleet; the use of smaller or more efficient vehicles on some routes could make the service more economical.

And it’s time to revisit the policy on how the service is subsidized. Current city policy maintains that between 27 and 33 percent of the revenue must come from the farebox, which over time has locked the city into choosing between reducing service and raising fares.

David Henkin, chairman of the Kahaluu Neighborhood Board and an environmental lawyer, said the city needs better data to understand the factors — price point or level of convenience — that drive a commuter’s decision on whether to ride the bus. When riders drop out of bus commuting and resort to their cars, he said, there’s a cost there, too: Increased traffic adds to wear and tear and lost productivity due to wasted travel time.

He’s got a point. Yes, city taxpayers underwrite the costs of the bus, but whether or not they ride themselves, they do get some benefit from the service — a more manageable transportation system for the community at large.

Cutting corners is sometimes unavoidable, but it’s rarely a permanent solution. And if it pushes people away from public transportation altogether, it could be completely counterproductive.