Published: June 24, 2009 08:49 pm      

Cedar Bluff, Va., in jeopardy of losing bus service

CEDAR BLUFF, Va. — Passengers aboard a public bus running the Cedar Bluff route Wednesday have a lot in common; many of them will have a hard time getting anywhere if they lose their bus service.

Cedar Bluff resident Candy Shrader, 43, described her community’s situation before passing her phone to other passengers aboard her bus. Service is leaving July 1 because the town of Cedar Bluff cannot pay a monthly $600 local match to Four County Transit, she said. The bus has approximately 25 passengers a day.

“I’m on the bus now. We have a lot of elderly and disabled who ride the bus to get to the doctor, get our medicines and to the grocery stores. My daughter does Upward Bound, and she uses it to go back and forth,” Shrader said. “We went to the town with a petition with 1,451 signatures, asking them to keep the bus.”

Shrader passed her cell phone to 60-year-old Pat Lawson of Cedar Bluff.

“We really appreciate buses and need them,” Lawson said. “We don’t have any transportation to get our medicine, go to the stores, doctors or anything. We don’t have no way to go anywhere. It (loss of service) would leave us without a ride.”

Cedar Bluff resident Gaylend Deskins, 70, then received the telephone and said losing the bus would leave her without any way to travel.

“That’s the only way I have of getting my groceries, getting my medicine and going to the doctor,” she said. “I’d really appreciate keeping the bus. That’s the only way I have to get around.”

Four County Transit serves Tazewell, Buchanan, Dickinson and Russell counties, said General Manager Joe Ratliff. The bulk of the system’s cost, approximately 50 percent, is funded with federal dollars. State funds help cover operating expenses, and the individual towns and counties served by the buses pay a local match.

“What’s happened is that the town of Cedar Bluff is having some real difficulties with their budget,” Ratliff said. “They’re making a lot of cuts in their budget and they have decided to cut the public transit.”

“We want to provide service and we want to provide public transportation,” he said. “We’re a regional public transit authority and we try to connect routes. We connect with Graham Transit and with Bluefield Transit. The growth during the last two years has been incredible. We’ve been blessed with strong ridership,” Ratliff said.

Cedar Bluff Mayor Johnny Smith said “we told the people we would try to find some way to keep it if we could, but we have not been able to so far. Thus far we haven’t worked out all the details, but we’re working on some things.”

One possibility being explored is to pay the $600 monthly contribution by month rather than for an entire year, Smith said. A lose of approximately $220,000 in county funds, plus the need to create a new fire department with new fire trucks, has strained the town’s budget, he said.

“We’re hoping to find something before (June 30). We’re hoping to see the transit people and see if we can go month by month,” Smith said. “I hope it (service) does not end. I’m hurting for those people and hopefully we can work something out.”