The release of a $2.5 billion mass transit plan for Indianapolis called Indy Connect is not giving Northwest Indiana's transit plans the boost some had expected.
Instead, two key legislative leaders have thrown cold water on any hopes that the Indiana General Assembly in its upcoming session will authorize additional financial support for mass transit in the Indianapolis area or anywhere else.
"In terms of new tax authority this is a terrible time to increase taxes," said Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, the next chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. "So anything that increases the tax burden on people is just not in the cards."
Some transit boosters in Northwest Indiana were hoping the release of the Indy Connect plan might help build support for a statewide funding solution for mass transit.
Indy Connect was formulated by Indianapolis-area transportation agencies. The plan envisions a three-fold expansion of current bus services as well as rapid bus transit routes and commuter rail. But it would take a local option income tax or sales tax to build and operate.
Bill Hanna, executive director of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, said there still is hope the General Assembly could address the "fiscal dilemma" of mass transit in the state.
"There should be no sacred cows in this discussion, other than maintaining the basic services needed by the people who use them and needed to grow our economy," Hanna said.
The powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said he is favor of developing some type of prototype organization to oversee mass transit efforts in any part of the state that has such ambitions.
But the potential for the upcoming session of the General Assembly authorizing any new financial support for local mass transit, even in terms of authorizing local voter referendums, is "pretty thin," Kenley said.
The situation with mass transit funding is particularly critical in Northwest Indiana, where the RDA has pledged it will cut off all operational funding for local bus services by the end of 2011.
The RDA plans to keep funding capital programs such as buying buses and equipment needed for consolidation.
The RDA's pledge to cut off operational funding is particularly critical to the Northwest Indiana Regional Bus Authority, which in August expanded the former Hammond Transit bus service with the help of a $4.8 million grant from the RDA.
Without RDA money or further support from state or local tax coffers, the expanded Hammond service probably could be kept running only until about June 2012, according to RBA Executive Director Tim Brown.
Brown said the RBA has not given up on the General Assembly coming up with some sort of solution for mass transit funding statewide.
"It's a long time and a long session," Brown said. "It hasn't even started yet, and there is all kind of speculation."
Hanna said the RDA will continue to fulfill its role in helping define the most cost-efficient means of providing transit services.
The RDA appears to have been successful so far in doing that for the former Hammond Transit, which has realized a 58 percent increase in ridership in just three months of offering expanded service.
The RDA's drive to merge all local bus services suffered a major setback in October, when its final offer on a preliminary consolidation agreement was rejected by Gary Public Transportation Corp., the region's largest public bus service provider.