Why TARC has been forced to cut routes over the past many years.

Before the Transit Authority of River City’s most recent round of service cuts last year, local activist John Owen put out a press release. While it’s unfortunately not available on the Internet at this time (to my knowledge), I thought I’d use this blog posting to echo a couple choice paragraphs from it:

That 1974 funding of 2/10 of 1 percent never anticipated TARC providing service to Bullitt and Oldham counties over routes once operated by Kentucky Bus Lines, service to Prospect once operated by Prospect Bus Lines, nor to Southern Indiana on routes served by the old Daisy Line, Home Transit Company, Bridge Transit Company

Nor did that 1974 tax address the operation of TARC 3 services which were not mandated in to law until the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the 1990’s. TARC 3 accounts for 26 per cent of TARC’s Current budget and is an unfunded mandate added to the occupational tax of 1974 levels.

(Emphasis is mine. -dse)

TARC’s recent post on Twitter prompted me to post this, and hopefully get some discussion going once again on how to avoid future cuts, keep recent service improvements (namely “Buses Every 15 Minutes”) going well beyond their initially slated lifespan of a year, similarly improve service on other routes, and make other much-needed expansions to its service.