"Google Maps makes public transportation easy"

I tried it and it worked for me.

Read all about it at this TARC page.

Some are calling TARC's new service 'Bus Rapid Transit Lite' - a bus every fifteen minutes on routes #18 and #23 on weekdays, all day. That means the average wait for an unplanned ride is a mere 7.5 minutes. That's so frequent that I won't bother consulting a schedule.

The 18 has a new ripple - it serves the north end of U of L's Belknap campus, with direct service to the downtown medical center.

The 23 gets the high frequency by doing a timed interbraiding of a number of tributary routes at Douglass Loop.

This is a great service, paid for through federal CMAQ dollars, but before you invest millions of your own dollars in new development along the corridor, know that the funding stream will likely dry up in a few years, and so might the service. If we had a more robust form of funding for our transportation, this would spur some real development.

Photo: Mary Beth Brown

I recently enjoyed a night on the town, going to a roller-rink outside of I-264. We TARCed there. Most of our friends took the same bus. It was great fun seeing friend after friend board the bus at each successive stop, and by the time we reached our destination we had a low-grade party going on.

Photo courtesy Andy Dyson @ Bicycling for Louisville

TARC's "Bikes on Board" program has been so successfull, people are complaining that there's no space. One possible stopgap is to replace the current generation of 2-bike racks with 3-bike racks. TARC has outfitted a pair of buses with triple racks and is going to begin testing them soon. Reps from CART and Bicycling for Louisville were invited to give feedback at a meeting today.  The racks were not perfect, but neither were the existing racks. Yours truly brought his biggest, most cantankerous bicycle, which is actually incompatible with the current crop of racks, and it looks like both models of new rack are better for it.

If you use one of these on the street, be sure to write TARC and/or comment here with any thoughts you might have on them.

This new hybrid bus was purchased with ARRA stimulus dollars. It features a new 'hybrid' color scheme (har har), merging the new grey bus scheme with the butterfly from the older iconic blue "Breathe Easier" hybrids. Hybrids have better fuel economy than their pure-diesel counterparts, but they cost more up-front. Whether they repay that initial investment is a gamble on the future price of diesel.

Public Meetings are scheduled to discuss the proposal. See this article on the KIPDA blog for details.

Today kicked off the public meetings on the TARC cuts. There were two meetings.

The first meeting at Union Station was packed. I expected 30 people. There were over 100!! People were polite but grumpy their routes were getting cut. People were casting blame everywhere - elected officials, TARC 'bloat', you name it. Nevertheless, I think the meeting was educational for most people there. The presentation was "folks: we're broke, that's why we're cutting your service". At least two council members and two mayoral candidates were there. The "Best Organized" Oscar certainly goes to the riders of the #66 Mt Washington / Sheperdsville express, who had signs, name tags, and maybe even a logo asking for their favourite route to be preserved!

more below the fold...

This week we're going to run an article every day related to TARC, the Transportation Authority of River City. Today's theme is:

The Story So Far

• TARC is forced into significant route cuts, including the virtual elimination of their express bus service. Read TARC's Frequently Asked Questions on the cuts.
• Public meetings on the route cuts will run all this week, see ridetarc.org for details.
• Local transportation activist John Owen is stirring up people to not take the cuts lying down, and plans public meetings. Read his press release.
• Mayoral Candidate Jackie Green is doing a "media event" at 10:30 am at TARC on Tuesday.
• Join your fellow TARC riders on the bus@cartky.org mailing list.
• Click below the fold for the Bad TARC Joke of the Day...

TARC plans to eliminate 24 routes in 2010, and cut most of the remaining 31 routes. Tommorow TARC's planned service cuts from this winter go into effect, but Louisvillian's revenue keeps on tanking, so TARC is having to cut more service for July. About $5m annually will be saved by this second round of cuts. The second round will be the subject of public meetings. See below for details.

TARC Routes, 2010

1 - 4th Street Trolley cut Feb, eliminate July
2 - Second Street cut Feb, cut again July
4 - Fourth Street cut Feb, cut again July
6 - Sixth Street cut Feb, cut again July, route change July
12 - Twelfth Street cut Feb, eliminate July
15 - Market Street cut Feb
17 - Bardstown Road route change July
18 - Preston / Dixie route change July
19 - Muhammad Ali Boulevard cut Feb, cut again July
21 - Chestnut Street route change July
22 - Twenty-second Street cut Feb, eliminate July
23 - Broadway route change July
25 - Oak Street cut Feb cut again July
27 - Hill Street cut July
29 - Eastern Parkway cut July
31 - Middletown cut Feb cut July
35 - Indian Trail-hikes Lane eliminate July
37 - Iroquois Park - Fairdale Express cut Feb eliminate July
38 - Deering Road Express eliminate July
40 - Jeffersontown Express
43 - Poplar Level/portland cut Feb
45 - Okolona Express cut Feb, eliminate July
46X - West Louisville / GE Express eliminate Feb
49 - Westport Express cut Feb, eliminate July
50 - Dixie Express eliminate July
52 - Medical Center Circulator
53 - Breckenridge Express cut Feb, eliminate July
54 - Manslick Express eliminate July
55 - Westport Road
58 - Bashford Manor - Oxmoor cut Feb, eliminate July
59 - River Road eliminate July
61 - Plainview Express cut Feb, eliminate July
62 - Breckenridge - Shepherdsville route change July
63 - Crums Lane cut Feb
64 - Fincastle-forest Spr Exp cut Feb, eliminate July
65 - Southern Indiana I-65 Express
66 - Mt Washington-shepherdsville, eliminate July
67 - Oldham I-71 Express cut Feb, cut again July
68 - Prospect Express eliminate July
69 - New Albany Express eliminate Feb
70 - Clarksville - New Albany Express eliminate Feb
71 - Jeffersonville cut Feb
72 - Clarksville - New Albany cut Feb, cut again July
73 - Charlestown Road Express cut Feb, eliminate July
74 - Jeffersonville / Riverfront
75 - Bluegrass Circulator eliminate July
77 - Main St. Trolley cut July
78 - Downtown/bluegrass Express cut Feb
80 - Hurstbourne Parkway eliminate July
84 - South Louisville
93 - Ups Shuttle - U of L
94 - Cardinal Shuttle Mon - Thurs
95 - Cardinal Shuttle Friday
96 - West Louisville Circulator eliminate Feb
99 - Ups Shuttle West Louisville

More on what you can do below the fold...

The TARC board has granted a stay of execution on some of the routes slated for cancellation. The best coverage of the cuts is at the KIPDA transportation blog.

TARC's cut will not be sufficient to reach financial balance. Thus the Metro Transit Trust Fund (MTTF) will dip down to $7.5 million dollars from its healthy level of $10 million dollars. The MTTF serves as a way to keep service on the streets in an emergency, and also as buffer cash for reimbursement projects ("if you build it we will pay...someday" as oppposed to "we will pay you then you build it").

While everyone awknolwedges this is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, I have to give credit for them having the guts to deficit spend. There's a strong argument that government shouldn't cut jobs during a recession, and we've had plenty of state and local job cuts already, just as the feds are pouring money into creating new jobs.

This is no game and there is an element of risk for the livelyhood of 60,000 TARC riders. So far TARC has not had the roller-coaster ride of severe service cuts experienced at many other transit agencies. (c.f. today's front page New York Times article on the MTA cuts). That's a possibility that Possibility City has avoided.

CART remains committed to creating a better federal funding structure for transit in the new authorization in 2010.