Today from 11-1 and 5-7, TARC is holding public meetings to discuss the proposed service reductions, scheduled to be put to a vote by the company next Monday. I went to the first meeting and asked some questions, and found out it is an emergency response to the discovery that they will be receiving much less ($200 million, to be exact) than they had projected. They attributed this shortfall primarily to rising unemployment in Louisville-- TARC gets about 60% of its budget from local occupational taxes (it only gets about 12% of its income from rider fares). Another factor is that Louisville does not automatically increase its transportation budget to keep up with inflation each year, as do most cities.
A lesser known fact is that TARC has a long, and ongoing history of spending funds needlessly. In the early 1990s, TARC had a trust fund worth $38 million, $20 million of which was squandered in 5 years due to mismanagement, overspending, and fringe benifits for administrators.
Sound familiar?
Incidentally, "the planner," as he/she was consistently referred to, called in sick today, so no one could really go into much detail about anything at the meeting.
The chart above is a list of all routes currently in service in Louisville. About 2/3 of the routes will be affected. 10 routes will be completely eliminated, and 22 others will see service reductions and route changes. Meetings will also be held on Wednesday, Dec 9 in New Albanay from 11am-1pm and in Fern Creek from 5pm-7pm, and on Thurday, Dec 10 at Iroquois High from 5pm-7pm and St. Matthew's City Hall from 11am-1pm. You can also visit their website at www.ridetarc.com to contact them with comments via e-mail.
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