For most residents of southeastern Connecticut, a trip between New London and Mystic is as easy as a 20-minute car drive in their own vehicle. Driving just five minutes longer takes most of us from New London to Foxwoods Resort Casino.

For many residents, however, such trips are not so simple, nor so quick. These residents rely on public transportation to get to work, school or medical appointments. For them, a ride from New London to Foxwoods means a 55-minute commute. A bus ride from New London to the Olde Mistick Village area takes about 25 minutes, but only once a rider gets to Water Street, near the New London train station.

While having a car is considered a necessity for most southeastern Connecticut residents, for those without a driver’s license or who cannot afford a vehicle, insurance and upkeep, car ownership is simply not a viable option.

Driving to a destination is also not a possibility for many of the physically or developmentally disabled.

For these groups, reductions to the already-sparse public transportation services in the region would be an extreme hardship transforming barely tolerable commutes into impossible journeys.

This spring, after the state warned Southeast Area Transit District officials that it and other public transit districts faced a 15 percent state funding reduction, SEAT’s riders turned out at public hearings to talk about the hardships cutbacks would cause. They said they rely on the bus service to get them to classes at Three Rivers Community College, to get to work at Foxwoods or the Mohegan Sun casinos. Seniors told them the bus was a godsend to deliver them to medical appointments.

Fortunately for these riders, as well as for the many local businesses that employ them, SEAT did not suffer the $640,000 anticipated state cut. The legislature’s adopted budget includes an extra $29 million in sales tax receipts for the Special Transportation Fund, along with millions in General Obligation bonds.

While the new budget averted the predicted dire cutbacks and fare hikes for bus and rail riders throughout the state, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy warned this is not a long-term solution for Connecticut’s transportation system.

“The state will need to find new, long-term funding sources to replace dwindling gas tax revenues,” the governor said. “This should not be seen as optional – it’s critical to Connecticut’s future.”

Even without the drastic statewide cuts, locally SEAT officials are grappling to make some service realignments necessitated by level funding from both the state and SEAT’s member communities. The directors are working hard to ensure the riders who rely on the bus service will not be left without public transportation. Still, working with a bare bones public transportation system to begin with means any service reductions or route realignments will impact riders.

We agree it’s time the state stops careening from emergency to emergency when it comes to transportation funding. Legislators must stop kicking into the future possible solutions, such as re-instituting tolls on the state’s highways.

In the coming election, voters will have the opportunity to approve a state constitutional amendment to assure that funds collected through the gas tax and any revenues collected if tolls return to our highways are used for transportation and not redirected to the general fund for other uses. This newspaper has long advocated for that necessary step.

In the meantime, local legislators should hop a SEAT bus. They should travel the routes riders take to work or school, make the transfers, endure the long rides. They should experience the daily realities of many hard-working bus riders that they represent and who deserve better than more threats of draconian cuts and temporary fixes.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.