After months of near-silence, Ben Franklin Transit in the Tri-Cities has responded to our study showing that while their ridership has been in decline, their spending has continued to increase. Their response was in the form of an op-ed in the Tri-City Herald in which the Ben Franklin General Manager and the chairman of the Ben Franklin Transit Board purport to rebut WPC's findings. Their argument, however, ends up being more deflection than rebuttal.  They cite the location of WPC's main office (Seattle) and insinuate it has left us out of touch -- as though ridership and revenue numbers were dependent on the location of the desk that collects the data.

Theirs was a disappointing response since a real opportunity to better serve the community at a lower cost is there for the taking.  WPC's Mariya Frost penned a letter to the editor in response to BFT's op-ed.  Here is a snippet of Mariya's response: 

Transit response 

BFT did not dispute our findings, but argued that Washington Policy Center’s analysis of the agency’s performance is flawed because we have an office in Seattle.

Left unmentioned is that WPC has an office in the Tri-Cities, employees in the Tri-Cities, and a governing board comprised of more than a dozen Tri-City business leaders. Citing a “Seattle” influence in a message urging a tax cut was an unusually imaginative approach. That said, our location is irrelevant and does not change the fact of BFT’s declining ridership trend.

You can read the rest of Mariya's letter here.