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Why is Public Transportation Important?

• Efficiency: Public transit uses less energy to move more people. This will become critical in the near future as "peak oil" takes hold and drives fuel prices through the roof.
• Inclusiveness: teens, people with disabilities, and people unwilling/unable to pay thousands of dollars a year for cars can all can all use transit. Allowing good mobility for all citizens is a prerequisite for an inclusive society.

How does TARC Work?

TARC gets most of its "capital costs" - money to buy buses and stations with - from the Federal government. The day-to-day expenses - paying drivers, buying diesel fuel - comes from three sources:

1. 60% local occupational (income) tax.
2. 20% federal money
3. 17% farebox revenue

What that means is if you paid TARC the full cost of each ride you took, it would cost you $6.25 per ride, instead of $1.25. That seems outrageous until you calculate how much a gallon of gas in your Chevy should cost you if you paid for all roads, police, bridges etc having to do with driving. All forms of transportation are subsidized by the government.

What's New?

Gas prices have started to climb. We may again be lucky and see $3.00/gallon gasoline, but it'll never be the same. Because all the oil "gushers" are gone, the price of fuel will, in the long term, be going unsteadily upward. People are looking for alternatives to driving. And they're discovering that our public transit system is quite threadbare, with buses 75 minutes apart or more. People want a good alternative to driving.

TARC is responding by cutting service and raising rates. They're out of gas money too. TARC's operations budget is only $67 million dollars. Last year their buses consumed $6 million in fuel. To run the same service this year would require $10 million for the same exact fuel. The $4 million difference is being made up by cutting routes short, cutting certain services entirely, and raising riding fares a quarter.

Oil prices are going to go up. TARC will have to keep cutting service and raising rates until economies of scale cause the entire system to wither up and blow away.

What are We Going To Do?

We want KFTC's support to explore new models for massively funding TARC. Our government leaders aren't doing all they can to find ways to help public transit. We're seeking new ways to motivate them, first and foremost is an initiative to get more funding for TARC put on the ballot this fall.

This document is available on the www as "cartky.org/kftc". By looking at it online, some of the facts will have a clickable links taking you to original sources.
 (Especially if I have time to go back and add them in later... :-)