BY SUSAN BROWN, Times of Northwest Indiana
sbrown@nwitimes.com
HOBART | Mary Cambridge's last ride home from work on a NWICA bus came Friday, nearly 12 weeks after she learned the county's largest on-demand bus service had plans to shut down.
The bus, near capacity in mid-November, on Friday held only Cambridge and Shawauna Powell, both workers at Americall Group.
Neither of the women, both of Gary, knew where their next ride to work was coming from.
Aghast and dismayed in November, Cambridge appeared resigned Friday.
"I'll have to find another way to work, or I won't be working," said Cambridge, who has been employed full-time at the call center for three years.
Cambridge doesn't own a car. Neither does Powell, who has been with Americall for six months.
The nearest bus stop is at 61st Avenue and Broadway, too long a way to walk to the business complex where Americall is located on Northwind Parkway and Mississippi Street. With workers reporting the hourly pay to be $9 and less, cab fare would be prohibitive at $15 each way.
Both women said relying on family or friends isn't an option.
Cambridge said the company had shown empathy with the situation, even contacting Northwest Indiana Community Action Corp., the nonprofit that operated the transit service until Friday.
"They tried to talk to them but, " Cambridge said with a wistful smile.
The company indicated it would give her a few days to find another way to work.
"But it can't go on long," she said.
Despite her own plight, Cambridge said she had special concerns for senior citizens now "left on their own."
Cambridge had been among dozens of the service's regular passengers at a public hearing in December where their families, friends, medical providers, social workers and others had pleaded on their behalf.
But last week, NWICA Executive Director Gary Olund said the nonprofit is "tapped out," having spent $650,000 of its own resources over two years trying to keep the service alive as contributions from the cities of Gary and Hammond dried up.
Olund said the nonprofit is out of the bus business. The service can potentially be resurrected but "not by us," he said.
During the past 12 to 18 months, the service had been used by at least 3,000 people throughout the county, many in need of transportation to dialysis, accounting for tens of thousands of rides, Olund said.
In addition to the impact on passengers, Olund said 14 full-time and two part-time bus drivers have been let go.
About 25 buses will go back to the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission to be sold.
"If there's anything good to come out of this, I hope it's brought a sense of urgency to the problem that's long overdue," Olund said.
It's a sense of urgency that has led the Northwest Indiana Regional Bus Authority to pursue meetings with Gary, Hammond and East Chicago officials about a new course of action, said Keith Matasovsky, Hammond Transit System director and a RBA board member. "This is a different plan with more urgency to save the three fixed-route agencies," he said.
"That was originally prohibited in the agreement with the (Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority), but - I can't say this for certain - I think that has been relaxed," Matasovsky said. "I know the RDA is currently putting more pressure on the RBA to find ways to bring the three fixed routes together under the RBA."
Like Olund, Matasovsky has been confronted with the real-life human fallout from the bus stalemate.
"These people have no clue what they're going to do," he said. "It's just gut-wrenching."
RBA President Dennis Rittenmeyer said the RBA had a plan in hand two years ago only to have the RDA reject it.
"Instead what they wanted us to do is create demonstration projects, try new and different things," he said. "They wanted no money to go directly to Gary, East Chicago and Hammond."
Since then, the state's property tax relief legislation has hit the cities hard, prompting them to cut funds to NWICA.
Rittenmeyer said as a result, he is expecting the much smaller South Lake County Community Services to be getting a lot more calls for rides.
"They'll be requesting more money, but that's not the answer," he said of the ongoing conundrum.