Voters in Pierce County face the choice of either approving a sales tax increase or watching their bus service be gutted.

The future of routes throughout East Pierce County could hang in the balance, including the 408 and 409 routes that serve Sumner, Bonney Lake and Buckley.

Pierce Transit will ask voters Feb. 8 to approve a sales tax increase of 0.3 percent, or three cents on every $10 purchase, in order to preserve the system as currently operated.

Presently, Pierce Transit accounts for .6 percent of the sales tax, though its voter approved limit is 0.9 percent, the amount for which they are asking.

“We’ve tried to hold off as much as we can for as long as we can,” said Kelly Hayden, Pierce Transit’s acting vice president of transportation services.

Hayden said approximately 70 percent of Pierce Transit’s revenue comes through sales tax collections. The ongoing recession, he explained, has led to fewer people shopping and “torpedoed” the transit system’s budget, creating a gap between revenues and expenditures that was previously estimated to reach $68 million by 2012.

“That’s basically how we live, on sales tax,” Hayden said.

Visitors to a Jan. 18 open house at Sumner City Hall perused a series of displays explaining the differences between Pierce Transit’s “preservation plan” – which would be enacted with approval of the tax increase – and a reduction plan that would be implemented if the Feb. 8 ballot measure fails.

But even the preservation plan means changes in service for East Pierce County residents.

Under the preservation plan, Bonney Lake would still lose routes 406 and 407, with service to Buckley and Prairie Ridge, respectively, every two hours. But according to Principal Planner Tina Lee, those would be replaced with services on Routes 450 and 496.

The 450 would function as a Bus Plus route, connecting Bonney Lake and Buckley with service mid-day every two hours. Bus Plus routes follow a fixed path but deviate to requested stops within three-quarters of a mile of the line.

Route 496, which connects Bonney Lake’s Park and Ride to the Sounder Station, would include two trips to Buckley each morning and evening, timed with the trains.

Route 407 would be combined with the 408 so it is the same route all the way from Sumner Station to the Bonney Lake Park and Ride and then on to Prairie Ridge. That fixed-route service operates seven days a week with hourly trips.

Under the reduction plan, all regular routes through the region would be eliminated, except the 496 from the Sumner Sounder Station to the Bonney Lake Park and Ride.

The reduction plan would also mean big changes throughout the system with the potential 35 percent reduction in service levels by the end of next year.

“Everybody suffers,” Hayden said, adding that the change would lead to the loss of 4 million to 5 million passenger trips per year.

Hayden admits that asking voters to approve a sales tax increase for the bus system is not ideal, but said it is the only solution at this time.

“We just can’t support the system that’s out there at our current level (of funding),” he said during the Sumner open house.

Hayden said Pierce Transit has been making cuts and changes for several years, including a 22 percent reduction at the management level since 2008.

“If there was any other way we could do it, we would do it,” he said of the proposed sales tax increase.

Orlando Martin, who lives outside Sumner, said he is a regular bus rider.

“I like to ride as much as I can,” Martin said.

Martin said he attended the open house to get a little more information on the changes and said he would probably vote for the increase, though he did encourage Pierce Transit to add a stop near WinCo.

“I just believe in public transportation,” he said.