Last week, Dameon Pesanti’s article in The Columbian focused on C-Tran officials’ response to our recent “Updated Key Facts about C-Tran” report. Our Key Facts report highlighted C-Tran’s recent performance and provided analysis using the transit agency’s own numbers to better inform the public. Instead of providing the public a plan to reverse cost increases and substantially gain ridership, C-Tran officials opted to justify rising costs at their agency.

Interestingly, C-Tran’s own 50 Year Vision Statement guides the agency to remain “flexible and accountable as it grows and changes,” and C-Tran’s 2015-2016 budget mentions the agency needs to “emphasize containing costs” to “preserve service levels for as long as possible.”

Yet when an independent research organization like Washington Policy Center provides publically-available numbers to residents of Southwest Washington, C-Tran officials try to explain the results away. Instead of thanking the public for providing the tax money used to continue operations, C-Tran officials avoided an honest and open debate on C-Tran’s role in providing mobility to the public.