Apr. 11—Longview couple Ryan and Nikki Palm are both blind and have used a temporary bus route to visit people they know in Lexington for the last few months.
Ryan Palm said they considered moving to the unincorporated area north of Beacon Hill before the bus line existed but didn't know how they would get around. The possibility of making RiverCities Transit's route 411 a permanent way to Lexington would give them a new opportunity.
"This would really help the entire community of Lexington with their independence," Nikki Palm said during a Wednesday public meeting about the route.
Cowlitz Transit Authority voted unanimously Wednesday to ask voters between Longview and Lexington whether to continue the route by joining the area's transportation district and increasing local sales tax.
The measure will be placed on Aug. 6 ballot, and if passed, sales tax for businesses in those precincts would increase by roughly 0.3%, or three cents on every $10 purchase, to pay for the continued bus service.
The measure will only be voted on by voters who live in the precincts that would be annexed into the district.
Transit Director Jim Seeks said RiverCities has enough funding banked to continue the route until the results of the August vote are known.
History
Route 411 has been funded by state grants since May 2022 as an extended pilot project for a bus route into Lexington, to see what the interest would be in a regular public transit connection between the growing unincorporated area and Longview.
The Transit Authority first considered placing the route on the ballot in October. When no supporters of the route showed up to a meeting held that month at Lexington Elementary School, the authority chose to hold off until RiverCities made a renewed push to gather public comment.
Seeks attended a parent-teacher meeting at Lexington Elementary to talk to families who relied on the bus. RiverCities circulated comment cards on the buses for the last four months, gathering more than 20 responses that were given to the transit board Wednesday. The cards and other comments from passengers on the route were universally positive.
The only comments against the route came from Kelso City Councilmember Keenan Harvey, one of Kelso's two representatives on the Cowlitz Transit Authority. Harvey said the sales tax increase might not be popular with voters who have never needed the bus to get around.
Route 411 is the least-traveled route that RiverCities runs but is approaching the ridership level of other services. Over the first three months of 2024, the route saw an average of 444 riders per month. The second-slowest route has 537 passengers per month.
Brennen Kauffman is a reporter for The Daily News covering government, with a concentration on Longview and Kelso.
___
(c)2024 The Daily News, Longview, Wash.
Visit The Daily News, Longview, Wash. at www.tdn.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
