The Bend city council’s notion of a bus system ferrying residents to and from jobs and shopping centers in the city didn’t do much for Lonnie Dragoo.

”It was a joke,” said Dragoo, a semiretired construction consultant who recently voted against a tax to fund a bus system.

In doing so, Dragoo joined a chorus of his neighbors in Bend’s Precinct 2 that voted overwhelmingly against the bus system. Roughly 69 percent of voters in the southside precinct said no to a bus system and the additional property taxes.

Citywide, about 56 percent of voters who cast a ballot didn’t want to pay for a bus system.

Election results show that only five of Bend’s 19 precincts voted in favor of the bus system. Two precincts outside of Bend that voted on the measure, Deschutes River Woods and a swath of Deschutes County west of the city, also voted against transit.

Taken as a whole, the transit vote results show a sharp contrast between precincts in Bend’s core downtown area and the westside neighborhoods, where about 54 percent of voters endorsed transit, and outlying areas, where only 43 percent of voters said they were willing to fund a bus system.

By precinct, the results nearly mirror the 2004 presidential election returns in which President Bush carried all of Bend with the exception of the five precincts in the city’s historic core.

”It’s been pretty clear for many years that there is a difference, a division, between the east and west side. That really proved to be true once again,” said Renee Davidson, a public relations consultant who worked on the transit campaign.

Davidson said members of the transit committee knew they would get support in the liberal-leaning areas of the downtown core and the near eastside and westside neighborhoods.

It’s a similar pattern that has emerged in many of the country’s major metropolitan areas, said Mike Riley, who served as the chairman on the transit committee.

”Frankly, it reminds me of other urban areas where the urban core votes liberal democratic and the outlying suburbs tend to be more conservative,” he said.

Riley said he watched a similar transit vote fail on a first attempt in Seattle several years ago. As with Bend, voters closer to downtown in the city’s older neighborhoods supported the transit measure while those in the suburbs voted it down, he said.

Construction consultant Dragoo exemplifies some of the challenges that transit supporters face in the outlying precincts.

A lifelong resident of Central Oregon and registered Republican, Dragoo lives in Timber Ridge, a sprawling park-like subdivision of custom homes near the Bend Golf and Country Club.

Dragoo said he has no use for a bus; he relies on his Chevy SUV for transportation.

No free rides

In an interview last week, Dragoo said he isn’t surprised that most of his neighbors voted against the bus tax.

”That’s what I expect of most people who think about this for two minutes,” he said. ”The kids downtown want a free ride some place. They think that’s cool.”

Dragoo said he doesn’t see a broader need for a bus system.

”If we had a center of business or industry, that would be different. But just to run buses around so kids downtown can have a free ride, that’s silly,” he said.

On the other side of the city and political spectrum is Precinct 4, which includes downtown and the tightly clustered neighborhood of historic homes sandwiched between the Bend Parkway and the Deschutes River north of Colorado Avenue.

There are about 1,480 registered voters in the precinct – a little more than 3 percent of the city’s total registered voters.

They tend to vote along liberal lines. More than 73 percent of voters here who cast a ballot in the last presidential election voted for Democratic candidate John Kerry.

On the transit question, about 65 percent of voters in Precinct 4 supported the bus tax.

”Bend is a growing city and it seems like a city this size should have transportation for everyone who doesn’t own a car,” said Eric Hartman, who rents a small house in Bend’s Old Town neighborhood just south of downtown.

A self-employed inventor, Hartman develops toys that he markets and sells through a distributor.

His living room is crowded with items that reflect his lifestyle. A snowboard leans against the wall just inside the front door. An acoustic guitar is perched against the edge of the couch within arm’s reach of his living room table, which doubles as a workbench. In the background, public radio talk show host Terry Gross talks about a biography of author P.G. Wodehouse.

Hartman, who moved to Bend about 1-1/2 years ago from Portland, said he is surprised the transit vote failed. He’s not surprised that his neighborhood supported it.

”It’s probably because you’re dealing with more renters – people who moved here for the metro lifestyle,” he said.

On the north end of town, where new subdivisions are sprouting up along what was once farm and ranch lands on the outskirts of the city, the election results reflect a different set of values.

Until 1999, much of Precinct 20 was under the county’s jurisdiction. Bend voters changed that when they annexed 11 square miles on the outskirts of the city.

Setting priorities

When asked to support the city’s transit proposal last month, two out of every three voters that cast a ballot in Precinct 20 declined.

”It’s a difficult decision because I believe that eventually the city is going to need buses,” said Sam Catterlin, a retired Navy pilot and systems engineer for General Electric.

Catterlin, 79, moved to the area two years ago from Fairfax, Va., to be with his children.

Catterlin said the bus system was a matter of priorities.

”I know we have on-call buses, and I’m not sure that isn’t the best way to go,” he said. ”I didn’t want to set forth a huge program at

this point.”

It was an easier decision for Liz Ivie, a 25-year-old nanny in Precinct 1. Ivie, who grew up in Bend and graduated from Mountain View High School, said she owns a car but uses it as little as possible. She walks to work and to see friends.

”I think we’ve needed public transportation for a long time. It’s way past due,” she said.

She joined a majority of the other voters who supported the bus tax in her precinct, a mix of mill-era craftsman homes and bungalows on the newly trendy west side.

Almost 60 percent of voters in Precinct 1 supported the transit levy, compared with 44 percent city wide.

A precinct divided

If the bus tax was black and white in Precinct 1, it was a shade of gray in Precinct 32 on the east side of the Bend parkway.

Voters there split down the middle over transit, with roughly 21 more votes for it than against it out of more than 2,100 ballots.

The politically divided precinct also tipped to the Democrats in the presidential election, with 56 percent of voters casting a ballot for Kerry.

”There are just a lot of people here who don’t have a way around in the winter,” said Deb Galvin, a 53-year-old caseworker with the Deschutes County juvenile justice department.

Galvin said she probably wouldn’t use the bus system but thinks it should be available for others who can’t provide their own transportation.

Perched on a stoop outside of her home on Northeast Ninth Street, Galvin drags off a hand-rolled cigarette, takes a sip of coffee and pulls a blanket tight around her legs against the December chill.

Galvin, who has lived in the same home for eight years, said she is surprised that more of her neighbors in Precinct 32 didn’t vote for transit.

”I don’t have a clue who wouldn’t,” she said. ”I look at everybody I know that lives around us, and I suspect they voted for it.”

But just a block down the street, Karmen Behm sees it differently.

Behm, 40, is registered as an unaffiliated voter but said she votes Republican.

A nearly life-long Bend resident who graduated from Bend High School, Behm quit her job at one of Bend’s remaining mills to home school her 8-year-old son, Caleb.

Seated in her kitchen for a late lunch of taco salad, Behm said her family can’t afford any more property taxes.

”We’re taxed heavily enough, she said. ”I can’t afford anything else.”

Besides, she doesn’t like the idea of subsidizing other people’s transportation.

”The people who are going to use this aren’t the people who are going to pay for it,” Behm said.

Eric Flowers can be reached at 541-383-0323 or eflowers@bendbulletin.com.