A VAILABLE S ERVICES

5.2.1. Public Transit

Public transit resources in Los Angeles County are significant. This plan shows that in FY 05 public transit operated a multitude of transit services which included rail, fixed-route bus and public paratransit, representing 584 million trips. For the 2000 Census population of 9.5 million persons in residing Los Angeles County, this represents 61 trips per capita. Funding associated with this level of service was not reported in this report, but clearly represents a major investment in the economy of this county.

The county’s voters have twice supported local sales taxes for transit, voting in Proposition A in 1980 and a decade later Proposition C in 1990. Each is a one-half cent sales and use tax that is returned through the County Auditor to Los Angeles County’s 88 cities. Each year cities in the county receive a portion of the funds generated by these taxes based upon population, while the balance goes to fund other transportation uses (e.g. rail development, streets and road repair, transit security, etc.).

Documented increases of the general population as well as the target populations, indicates that there will be continued need for growth in the capacity of the overall public transit system of Los Angeles County over the next twenty years. The County’s total population is expected to increase 28 percent with the target populations (seniors, persons with disabilities and income disadvantaged) increasing by as much as 55 percent between 2000 and 2030.

5.2.2. Specialized Transportation In Los Angeles County

Trips Provided

Los Angeles County cities operate paratransit services in a majority of the county’s eighty-eight (88) cities. Between the sixteen (16) municipal operators and the thirty-two (32) city-operated systems reporting paratransit data for the FTA National Transit Database (NTD), we can account for 4.1 million paratransit trips. Additional to this are the Access paratransit trips, ADA complementary paratransit trips of almost 2.4 million in FY 05. This represents the grand total of 6.5 million specialized public transit trips discussed in Chapter 3.

Additionally, there is some level of human service transportation that is provided in Los Angeles County. The responding sample of 88 human service agencies, indicating some type of transportation function, reported a total of 866,000 passenger trips in FY 05. As these agencies represent some unknown portion of all social service organizations providing transportation, we do not know the quantity of these trips provided in Los Angeles County. This is further confounded by the differences in how human services programs report trips provided, compared to the more standardized methods in which public transit report passenger trips. However, within the responding survey sample, 36% of all trips reported were provided by human service organizations.

Vehicles Reported

This process also documented vehicles operated by through the inventory process. A total of 832 reported in operation with the public operators accounting for 355 of these and the human services providers with 477 vehicles. Not included are an additional 300 vehicles reported by

FINAL 46 SEPTEMBER 2007 the commercial providers that may to some extent be double counted among vehicles reported by their contracting agencies, which could include either public transit or human services. The age of vehicles was not collected in this survey, but other surveys have shown human service vehicles to be generally older, with substantially higher mileage as compared with vehicles operated by public transit agencies.

As this vehicle count represents just 61 human services agencies and 34 general public transit operators within Los Angeles County, it is expected that the actual number of vehicles providing specialized transportation is greater.

Expenditures Reported

Information on expenditures and their sources was notably different between the two sectors, public transit and human services. While $167 million was reported in total expenditures, these funds were expended differently between the two groups. Public transit accounted for $139 million or 83 percent or this total, and report that they are allocating 70 percent of the funds they reported into direct vehicle operations, with another 20 percent expended for capital and vehicle replacement. Five and six percent respectively are going to special bus pass/ bus token programs and to mileage reimbursement/ taxi voucher programs.

Human service providers reported a much smaller proportion of the total dollars expended, almost $29 million (17 percent). Of this six, out of every ten dollars reported is expended upon subsidies for purchase of bus passes or tokens (59 percent). Another one and a half dollars or 16 percent of every ten reported, pays for mileage reimbursement and taxi voucher programs. Only two and half dollars of every ten reported are going to direct vehicle operations and less than one percent is reported for vehicle replacement expenses

Funding sources are substantially different in that city-operated systems and public transit operators report continuing, stable funding from federal, state and local dedicated transit sources. Human service agencies reported private donations, general fund allocations and special grants. For many human service agencies, particularly the smaller ones, funding availability from year to year is an on-going issue.

Infrastructure Differences

Public transit operators have access to funding for vehicle replacement, which helps to ensure that high percentages of their vehicle fleets are lift-equipped. In addition, there is funding for facilities to maintain vehicles and staffing to regularly perform preventative vehicle maintenance. There is the increasing introduction of technological solutions to perform both administrative and operational support functions, such as data management and accounting, billing, trip scheduling, dispatching, AVL, automated fare payment and call taking and information applications.

Such infrastructure does not exist within the human services systems, or uncommonly so. Of the individuals interviewed through this process, only one, a regional center employee, had the title of Transportation Coordinator. Other interviewees bore numerous other titles that ranged from office manager to grants manager to caseworker and agency director. Clearly the transportation function is decentralized within the human services environment across a number of agency roles. Such decentralization makes communication difficult internally and would in turn present challenges to coordination with outside agencies and organizations.

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