Mass Transit Needs Help

The Coast RTA needs permanent funding but also has to deserve it

Elected leaders in our communities are not noted for long-term planning across political boundaries. But on one critical need, expanded mass transportation in Horry and Georgetown counties, city, town and county councils should work together to ensure that the local mass transit agency, The Coast RTA, remains in operation after 2010. If the local councils fail to create a reliable permanent source of funding for the agency, formerly known as Lymo, our communities could lose their best hope of a people-moving alternative to the private automobile.

As The Sun News reported last week, federal transportation officials classify The Coast RTA as a rural mass-transportation system. For some years now, that rural classification, grounded in the 2000 Census finding that the Horry County has a population of 196,629, made The Coast RTA eligible for generous mass transit grants. During the fiscal year that started July 1, the agency will receive about $780,000 under this program.

In 2010, however, another census will be taken, and the Horry County population is certain to measure well above 200,000 - the threshold beyond which the feds formally classify local transit systems as urban. When that happens, the rural transportation grants will go away. The agency's operating budget will drop by nearly one-third.

That puts the onus on local governments not only to replace that money but also to increase it. As things stand now, the meager politically determined contributions that local governments make to The Coast RTA are barely enough to keep scheduled bus service alive. That's one reason the agency lost $150,000 in fiscal year 2006, which ended June 30.

Why should local governments raise taxes or fees to plug this gap on a recurring basis? The same population increase responsible for the pending loss of the rural transit grants provides the answer.

Our counties are experiencing explosive growth - especially near the coast. Many more cars clog local roads daily, even during the seasons when tourists aren't here on vacation. State and local road-building has not caught up with this increased traffic load, and likely won't catch up by 2010. Mass transit well may be the best hope of avoiding perpetual gridlock.

Would our car-loving residents and visitors really ride buses and - perhaps one day - trains? Many of them will if gasoline price increases continue to outpace inflation - as seems likely. They will if traffic congestion gets so thick that buses get people to shopping centers, medical appointments and tourist attractions more quickly than cars can.

At their meeting last week, the agency's board members pitched employee fees on local employers, a special mass transit mill levy or an annual transit fee on local residents as possible ways to create the needed permanent funding source. This will strike some readers as galling, considering that the new management that took over the agency after its 2004 fiscal scandal still has not stabilized routes.

Any of those funding options entails pain, and for that reason would be a hard yes vote for members of local councils. The Coast RTA, obviously, has to show the councils that it deserves such a revenue stream in the 3½ years ahead.

Still, councils must face this challenge. The way things seem now, future life in these communities without some alternative to the automobile would be bleak.