Today the Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (RGRTA) announced service cuts eliminating RTS OnDemand in Monroe County, the second round of transit cuts this year. People in large parts of Monroe County will now have no access to affordable and sustainable bus transportation amid Upstate’s transit funding crisis.
This means people have no bus option to get around their towns or connect into the RTS main bus lines,. While RTS is attempting to provide some fixed route services in Greece, Henrietta, and Lexington Ave, this is a drastically reduced service that severely limits people’s abilities to get to work and appointments.
We are calling on the Greater Rochester community to focus on the impact of these cuts on our neighbors. RTS cuts impact every sector of our economy as workers who rely on the bus can no longer get to jobs. This is a critical moment where structural budget gaps are translating into service cuts in the RGRTA area and other upstate transit systems.
We urge the community to contact Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature to urge them to find new dedicated revenues for RTS as they have in New York City and to provide the operating funding that will reverse service cuts and provide the foundation for future expansion that will fuel our local economy.
Contact Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature to urge them to find new dedicated revenues for RTS
Over the past three years, State and Federal revenue sources have not kept pace with rising costs of bus equipment, labor and operations. Current proposals for transportation funding in the U.S. Senate propose 20% funding cuts to public transit across the county. In order to prevent further service cuts, New York State has the opportunity this year to fix upstate transit revenues.
What Can We Do?
We urge Monroe County residents to write a letter to the Governor and the Legislature to urge them to fix upstate transit revenue shortfalls in the next state budget to ensure Rochester has fast and frequent buses.