WASHINGTON -- Disgruntled pubic transit operators from across the country have inundated the Federal Transit Administration with complaints about the agencys proposed charter bus regulations.

Of the nearly 300 letters and messages sent to the federal agency in response to its call for comments on the proposed rules changes, about two thirds are from public transit agencies; schools and universities; cities, counties and state governments, and others who have an interest in public bus systems.

Most of the rest are from private motorcoach operators who also have an important stake in the rules that regulate the type of charters public transit systems can provide.

"Weve got our work cut out for us," noted an FTA attorney who will help review the materials received during the two-month public comment period that ended April 16.

The call for comments is part of the FTAs formal process of redoing the 20-year-old charter bus rules for public transit agencies, which have been the subject of much controversy and disputes between private and public carriers.

Many of the measures in the proposal came from a joint committee of representatives of public transit operators and private motorcoach carriers who took part in a series of negotiated-rule-making meetings last year. Issues the two sides were unable to resolve when the meetings ended in December became the province of the FTA.

While the formal comments filed by the transit agencies with the FTA zeroed in on a number of issues, their harshest words were directed at the definition of charter service, which they said would severely limit their ability to provide shuttle service for many of the community events that take place in their communities each year.

Such shuttle service, they maintained, is a public service and transit agencies should be allowed to operate them.

"The communities that support public transit operators through local property taxes, sales taxes, developer fees and the like, reasonably expect us to manage and provide public transportation for public events," said Karen Graber, general manage of the Endless Mountains Transportation Authority in Mansfield, Pa.

More clarity needed
Henry Loymeyer, assistant general manager of the South Bend (Ind.) Public Transportation Corp., agreed, stressing that he is concerned that the lack of clarity of the definition of charter service threatens his ability to provide special event service, including shuttling people to Notre Dame football games.

Kevin Desmond, general manager of Metro Transit in Seattle, Wash., told the FTA that allowing public transit to operate shuttles for community events not only helps control traffic and parking problems, but introduces many non-transit riders to the system and turns some of them into regular bus riders.

"We urge the FTA to define charter service as service provided to an 'exclusive group of riders' rather than just a 'group of rides' in order that the rule does not negatively affect the provision of pubic transportation," added Chuck Kemp, general manager of the transit system in Madison, Wis.

They and others who shared similar opinions urged the FTA to broaden the definition so transporting people to regular major events in their communities would be considered public transportation.

Susan McGillicuddy, a supervisor of Meridian Township in Michigan, emphasized that residents who support public transportation through their taxes expect the transit agency to provide transportation for community events. "Please reconsider several parts of this proposed rule and make it clear that public transportation remains public transportation and that charter remain charter."

The public expectation
Tulsa (Okla.) Transit called on the FTA to change the rule, too, saying in its filing that the agency should look at special event transportation service from the view point of the user.

"As a publicly funded agency, our residents expect us to be able to provide such services when called upon to do so," the agency wrote in its filing. "They do not understand when we tell them that their public transit agency is prohibited from providing public transit services to their public event."

A rule that would limit to 80 hours the amount of time transit agencies could spend transporting government officials in a 12-month period also came under fire from the public side.

"This limit is arbitrary and does not support or respect local cooperation," asserted Capital Area Transportation Authority Chair Patricia Munshaw in a letter signed by eight board members. "The transportation of public officials should not be considered a charter."

The public side also objected to a rule that would allow the FTA to withhold federal money from transit agencies that repeatedly violate the rules.

"This is wrong," charged Robert Hoffmann, managing director of River Valley Metro in Kankakee, Ill. "It is inconsistent with the statutory purpose of federal transit programs and penalizes no one but the people in the communities who are supposed to benefit from these transit programs."

Pattern of violations
Some transit operators also voiced concern about rules that would allow the FTA to go back six years to establish a "pattern of violations," which would increase the severity of the financial penalties that federal regulators could hand out to transit agencies that violate the rules.

Chuck Kamp, general manager of Metro Transit in Madison, Wis., recommended that the look-back period be changed to two years. "Six years between incidents is too long to consider those actions a pattern," he said.

Several state agencies also protested a rule change that would involve state transportation departments in the charter complaint process, saying it would could tax the state agencies and create confusion.

"We believe that this would place a severe administrative burden on the WVDPT, as well as other state department of transportations and could lead to inconsistent interpretation of the charter service rules," warned Susan L. OConnell, director of the West Virginia Division of Public Transit.

A number of rural transit agencies also complained about a proposal that would require recipients of Section 5311 Program funds to file special paperwork for most of their trips to be exempt from some of the charter rules.

Paperwork burden
Gary Kitchin, general manger of Paducah Area Transit System in Paducah, Ky., warned that the rules could require rural transit systems to document every trip provided for human service agencies, local governments and others.

"This is a lot of work to document what already are, and would continue to be, allowed forms of public transportation," he said. "The cost of this administrative burden, both to the FTA and to its grantees, is certain to outweigh any benefits that would accrue to communities like mine under this rule."

The Alabama Association of Regional Councils, a 12-agency association representing all of the counties in Alabama, also complained about how the rules treat rural transit operations, including a requirement that social-service organizations register with the FTA in order for a transit agency to be exempt from the charter rules when they serve those groups.

"All human and social service organizations should be assumed to be qualified and therefore automatically registered," wrote Suzanne Burnette, president. "The burden of proof should be on proving a disqualification not on an agency petitioning to be considered qualified."

The FTA now will review the comments and could make changes to its proposal before moving the process forward, which could include a second comment period on any changes that might be made.