Suffolk to decide on Sunday bus service plan

Ever since he was East Hampton town supervisor, Suffolk Legis. Jay Schneiderman said he's known that East End bus riders struggle to get around on Sundays when buses don't run - hitching rides and using expensive taxis.

"Everyone knows we need Sunday service," said Schneiderman, a Montauk Independence Party member. "And we need to crack the door open somewhere."

After seven years of trying, Schneiderman expects to finally get a legislative vote Tuesday on whether to expand the county's six-day-a-week bus system - the system's first major expansion in three decades.

But the proposal is a hard sell because it means a 33 percent increase in the existing $1.50 fare for all riders countywide, generating $1.8 million, even though the pilot program will cover only eight or nine of the county's 56 routes.

Schneiderman said the 50-cent rate hike - to $2 a ride - is small, considering Suffolk's bus rates have not changed for 16 years and the new fares remain less than the $2.25 Nassau bus riders pay.

"I don't want to increase the burden on the poor, but the ridership is overwhelmingly asking for this," Schneiderman said. He added the Sunday service will boost mall sales and sales tax receipts.

If approved, Schneiderman estimates the Sunday routes would increase the system's ridership - now 3 million a year - by 130,000 passengers in the first year, or 2,500 each Sunday, starting June 15. While his proposal leaves route selection to the public works department, Schneiderman said he expects to include the county's two busiest routes - one that runs up and down the Route 110 corridor and an East End route from Greenport to Riverhead and East Hampton.

Schneiderman also has gained endorsements that he hopes will tip the balance. The Welfare to Work Commission last week backed the Sunday plan as long as the county picks routes serving lower-income areas.

"We're for it because the transportation costs on Sunday for working people . . . can be enormous, eating up whatever they make," said Richard Koubek, commission chairman.

Michael White, executive director of the Long Island Regional Planning Council, said the service is the kind of thing the region's new sustainability plan advocates. "It get people out of cars and helps people who can't afford cars," he said.

But Legis. Thomas Barraga (R-West Islip) said the 33 percent fare hike is "completely outrageous," adding it would force all riders to subsidize Sunday service that benefits only a few. "That's an extra dollar every day, $5 a week and $20 a month for people who use the bus to go back and forth to work five days a week," he said. "That's a large cost for people who can't afford a car."

While dubbed a pilot program, Barraga said dismantling the service, once implemented, would be nearly impossible. "It's very difficult to control spending when you put new programs in place because if you try to . . . cut the program, all hell breaks loose," he said.

Schneiderman said he was encouraged that last month he got nine votes - one short of passage - when he tried to include Sunday bus service as an amendment to the already contentious 2011 budget. He's hopeful it'll have better prospects as a resolution now that the budget is over.

But an undecided Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook) said the vote is too close to call.

"Jay's been passionate about the issue . . . but it's right on the bubble," Lindsay said. "A lot will depend on public testimony. The question is whether Sunday service is an adequate trade-off to the bump up in the fare. Is it fair to riders?"