April 18, 2007

City of Trinidad
409 Trinity Street
P.O. Box 390
Trinidad, CA 95570

Dear City of Trinidad:

Pursuant to Mayor Lin’s request at the April 11, 2007, City Council meeting, I am submitting a letter to the City regarding what I believe are unmet transit needs in Trinidad. This letter is to be included as part of the County-wide public hearing on this issue.

I attended HSU from 2003-06 while living in Trinidad and was fortunate, most of the time, to be able to coordinate my class schedule around the bus schedule, but this was not easy. The problem is that there is a significant gap in morning departures from Trinidad. There is a 6:55am departure and then there is not another morning departure until 9:18am, which means the bus does not arrive at HSU until 9:57am. For students with a 10am class, this arrival time is not sufficient for getting to class on time (especially if the bus is running late). As a result, students choose to drive to campus in order to get to their classes on time. I submitted a letter/petition (with many student signatures) to RTS a couple years ago about this scheduling problem. I asked them to please consider changing the schedule so that the bus would leave Trinidad around 9am instead of 9:18am in order that students could get to their 10am classes on time. I never received a response.

Another problem with the RTS bus schedule is that there is a major gap in service for riders leaving HSU and returning to Trinidad, especially HSU employees. There is a 4:13pm departure from HSU, which is convenient for students, but it is not a convenient for HSU employees who typically work until 5pm. In order for HSU employees (with an 8-5 work schedule) to ride the bus, they would have to either leave HSU early (to make the 4:13pm bus) or wait 1-1/2 hours for the 6:27pm bus, which means they would not arrive in Trinidad until 7:10pm. Most people are anxious to get home after a long day’s work and do not want to wait this long for a bus. For this reason, I believe people who work at HSU choose to drive because the bus schedule is not convenient for them. Considering that HSU is one of the most common destinations for many students and workers, it seems HTA should consider a more convenient schedule for them in order to boost ridership.

There are other unmet transit needs in Trinidad which I could address, but I feel that the RTS bus schedule from Trinidad to HSU is one of the most important issues. I understand that Trinidad is the last stop of the route and does not have a lot of riders, but in order to encourage people to take the bus, a convenient schedule must be provided to and from the Trinidad area. Otherwise, the public will continue to see the bus as an unsatisfactory mode of transportation and will only consider it as a last resort to their transportation needs. If bus schedules are more regular and reliable, more public would be willing to use mass transit.

I did give some thought to the fact that the Trinidad/Westhaven/Clam Beach portion of the route is not a money-maker for HTA. I was thinking that instead of sending the large buses into those areas, perhaps HTA could work out an agreement with Cher-Ae Heights Casino where the Casino’s shuttle buses could more frequently pick up riders from Trinidad/Westhaven/Clam Beach and take them into McKinleyville where they could then transfer to the regular RTS buses. If riders could get into McKinleyville, the buses run a lot more frequently. I think this is one feasible way to increase ridership from the Trinidad/Westhaven/Clam Beach areas and help reduce costs to HTA.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Kimberly Tays Binnie
ktays «at» suddenlink.net