The Trump administration announced in April that public transportation districts across the nation must assist in immigration efforts or have their appropriated federal funds withheld. Oregon, as a designated sanctuary state, refused to participate.
While Oregon and 19 other states battle over the legality of the Department of Transportation withholding these funds, the Rogue Valley is already feeling the impact.
The Rogue Valley Transportation District announced that it would be reducing services starting Sept. 2 to remain operational following the loss of federal funding. These planned cuts include reducing bus hours, suspending some routes and the total elimination of Saturday services.
This comes after the transportation district laid off 82 employees in June.
RVTD held an open house July 11, seeking the public’s opinion on which services were most vital to the community. Julie Brown, the general manager of RVTD, said the feedback was disheartening.
“We heard from people that don’t have any options, that may be losing transit service in their community,” Brown said. “They’re devastated. They just don’t know what to do.”
RVTD hopes to keep routes with the highest ridership operational, if not a little different, Brown said.
“There are areas that we know that the ridership is high because the people that live in those areas are very low income,” Brown said, “and so we’re going to try to reroute routes that look a little bit different and we’re able to serve them.”
Route 10, which runs from Medford to Ashland, will likely transition to a 30-minute schedule, Brown said. It currently runs every 20 minutes.
The potential cuts will be presented to the RVTD board of directors for approval July 23, and updated service hours and routes will be announced after.
