cartky.org

They mayor & Barry Barker took time out from the ped summit banquet to address our current situation with TARC funding.

Recall that as fuel prices rise yet occupational tax stays flat, TARC is cutting routes. For example this year they're trying to decide between two options, both of them hitting working people squarely in the chest:

ridetarc.org news release:

The TARC Board of Directors today gave tentative approval of a $68 million budget for Fiscal Year 2009 that includes a combination of fare increases and service reductions. The board considered several options for making up a $4 million shortfall resulting from rising gas prices and other costs before giving tentative approval to the budget proposal.

Under the proposed budget reviewed today, the base fare of $1.25 would increase by 10 cents and $1 million in service would be cut. The board recommended considering an increase to 25 cents and reducing the amount service that would be cut. If the fare increases to $1.50, about $500,000 in service cuts would be made.

“We don’t like increasing fares and we don’t like cutting service. It’s not the direction we want to go in,” said TARC Director J. Barry Barker. “But when you don’t have enough revenue, you have to do something.”

CART To REACT,

Developing...

Jon V., bike/ped coordinator writes:

TARC [Louisville's public transportation system] is distributing this survey as part of a long-range planning effort.  Please take a minute to fill out this brief online survey and help TARC set a course for the 21st Century!"

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=hhpRdEk_2fpKq0Tr66YW_2bnNw_3d_3d

The problem with continued public investment in new highway "capacity," be it bridges, lanes or altogether new stretches of pavement, is that it does nothing to alleviate our individual need to spend continually more for private transportation.  In the last generation, transportation has become the number two expense for American households.  As a nation, between 17 and 21% of our average household spending has gone towards transportation.  In the 1960's that number was closer to 10%.  Eighty years ago it was nearer 5%.  In Louisville this means that if the average family spends roughly $47,000 per year, $8,300 is spent on transportation.  (This is about the national average. I don't know what average household spending is in Louisville.)  Never mind the public, social and environmental costs associated with this type of public investment.

The beautiful thing about investing in public transit is that it provides us with the ability to choose to spend less of our increasingly hard earned dollars on transportation.  My public investment, my contribution to those taxes that are directed to public transit, gives me the ability to reduce my private investment in transportation.  More highways, more money for gas and insurance.  More public transit, more money in my pocket for other things.

Imagine what we could do if every household in Louisville chose to shift just $1,000 of that $8,300 they currently spend on cars to an investment in public transit infrastructure.  How many households are there in Louisville Metro?  200,000?  I'll let you imagine.  Is it possible?  Could we, as a community, begin to let go of some of our vaunted independence and begin to build a better, more beautiful, more livable Louisville based on our interdependence?

I believe we can.  I pray that we will.

the "TARCettes" issue

• CART Quarterly Meeting Next Wednesday
• Relaunched CART Website
• Talk by John Cullen This Wednesday
• How Do I Stop Courier-Journal Yard Litter?
• Pedestrian Summit Planning Heats Up
• Transit Needs Your Phone Call for Kentucky Legislature Funding
• Ohio River Bridges Under-Financed, Fight Moves to Tolls
• Mr. Theo & The TARCettes Perform Musical Bike Rack Demo
• Editorial: Are you more mobile than a 14 year old girl?
• Editorial: Twenty First Century Reality Check
• Study: Americans Prefer Transit to Roads

From TARC:

The proposed state budget calls for a 30% decrease in funding for public transportation. The three large urban transit systems in Kentucky -- Louisville, Lexington and Northern Kentucky -- testified before the House Transportation Budget Review Committee that $4 million is needed each year of the biennium to avoid service cuts and fare increases.

the 10 Commandments issue

• Nina Walfoort to speak at quarterly meeting
• World Car Free Day preperations
• TARC News
• Lexington Area Sierra Club
• Car Free Guide to Clifton
• Ohio River Bridges, again
• Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects: Error or Lie?
• Safe Routes To School is a winning issue
• China passes USA in CO₂ emissions
• Vatican issues 10 commandments for drivers

Download PDF (6 pages, 400kB)

Contents:

• Light Rail and a New Transportation vision for Metro Louisville
• Overview of Highways and Transit: Leveling the Playing Field in Federal Transportation Policy from the Brookings Institution.
• TARC's New Buses Address Air and Noise Pollution
• First Major TARC Survey
• Report finds 'Fix it First': Public Transportation are Key to Job Creation
• Next Stop Clifton - Imagining Louisville's Transit system in 2525