A group of bus riders and drivers staged a rally at the Santa Cruz downtown METRO station on May 21 in protest of planned cuts to the county bus system. METRO plans to reduce service across the county and cut more than 40 driver positions.

“I'm concerned because we're cutting routes to social services that are already in limited supply.” Among the threatened routes, Torres cites the 74, which takes riders to the Social Security office in Watsonville, the 69A, which runs to the Watsonville Hospital, and the 71 to Dominican Hospital. Under METRO's latest service reduction plan (as of May 11th) 74 is set to be cut outright, 69A will lose service between 9:50am and 3:50pm, and the 71 will run half as often, every 30 rather than every 15 minutes.

According to documents provided at a METRO public comment meeting on May 3, “METRO needs to reduce its annual operating budget by $6.5 million for the next fiscal year.” Torres says that money is available in the system's coffers, in reserves that used to be available for operations funding but are now off limits as a “rainy day fund.”

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