Bus cuts leaving East Oahu residents stranded

Community leaders on the rural Windward Oahu coast say residents there have reported losing jobs, missing college classes and facing other hardships because that isolated stretch of the island remains underserved by TheBus.

“To be straight up with you, this side does feel discriminated against,” Koolauloa Neighborhood Board Chairwoman Verla Moore told city transit officials at a board meeting in August. “We don’t get the bus services we’ve been begging for the last three to four years, ever since you folks cut the services out here.”

In the months since then, challenges with Route 55 — one of 101 bus routes across Oahu but the only one that runs all the way up the Windward side — continue to be “a big problem,” said Dotty Kelly-Paddock, vice president of the Hauula Community Association. The route is vital because residents without a car in that rural area have few other transit options, Kelly-Paddock and other area residents said this week.

The bus woes date back to 2011, when city transportation officials lengthened the average wait time between Route 55 buses to 40 minutes from 32 minutes and then made the wait a full hour as part of islandwide bus cuts in 2012. In 2013, Mayor Kirk Caldwell restored much of the cuts after pledging to do so in his campaign. Route 55 was only partially restored, however. It now runs every 45 minutes or so, riders say.

Buses along the route often become quickly overcrowded during peak hours, prompting drivers to skip stops — and leave any passengers there waiting for the next bus — until someone on board exits to make space, according to residents who’ve observed the route. Furthermore, Route 55 buses don’t leave early enough in the morning from rural communities such as Hauula for their riders to make it to work and school on time in town, they add.

“It’s a very frustrating thing for all these people working very hard to get to work on time,” Kelly-Paddock added. “I’ve heard people say it has cost them their job.”

City officials say that budget limits so far have kept them from fully restoring Route 55 service. To enact those changes, they would have to trim service from somewhere else, they said.

Mike Formby, director of the city Department of Transportation Services, said he’s aware of the hardships to Route 55 riders and that he’d like to reduce the wait times “as much as possible” — particularly because the communities along the route won’t directly benefit from rail.

“These are the communities we need to be most sensitive to,” he said Friday. The department has a service-review committee that’s slated to examine Route 55 and whether the city might be able to send more buses there, he added. Part of the challenge is the route’s 60-mile line is so long that boosting service and reducing wait times winds up being a lot costlier than it would be for most other routes on the island, Formby said.

Meanwhile, rural Windward residents hope they can apply pressure through other means. The city relies on $20 million to $30 million in federal funds each year to help operate TheBus. To accept those dollars, the Department of Transportation Services has to show federal officials that it complies with anti-discrimination laws under what’s known as Title VI, part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act — and let the public give comments on their experience with the bus system.

Residents commented on the city’s most recent Title VI report this past September — two years after the report’s 2013 release. The city didn’t take the comments in 2013 because they were following earlier Federal Transit Administration procedures, according to transit officials. The discrepancy confused some community members over what they were commenting for.

The comments for the city’s islandwide Title VI report singled out three Windward-side routes, including 55, saying their inadequate service “especially hurts the elderly, persons with disabilities and students,” according to a city summary.

Bus riders have another opportunity to submit their views for the city’s new 2016 Title VI report, which is accepting comments through April 8, according to the city’s website.

In fall 2013, after fielding numerous community complaints, Burt Greene, then transportation chairman of the Koolauloa Neighborhood Board, investigated Route 55 for himself. He spent two days observing arrivals and riding from Hauula to Kaneohe, then wrote a report on his findings. About six of the 15 buses he observed on the first day arrived late, Greene reported, and he urged the city to add an earlier bus on weekdays, arriving in Hauula at 5:40 a.m.

Such a move, Greene said, would help ease the overcrowding he saw during the morning rush, and it would help passengers who told him that they weren’t getting into town in time for work or school.

Greene, with the support of his neighborhood board colleagues, delivered the report to a representative of the mayor’s office. He said the administration later told him it couldn’t provide the earlier bus.

“We’re still getting complaints at every neighborhood board meeting,” said Dee Dee Letts, who sits on the Koolauloa board with chairwoman Moore.

Not everyone is dissatisfied with Route 55 service. Kahana Valley resident Olepa Malepe said Thursday that she uses the route three to four times a week and generally finds it reliable.

Malepe added, however, that tardy buses have made her late several times to her job as a store clerk on the North Shore — and that has prompted her to take an earlier bus when she can.