Six days a week, 17 hours a day, in all weather, you can see people queuing up at the Terre Haute bus transfer station at Eighth and Cherry streets, accessing their transportation lifeline to meet the needs of their lives.
Either by necessity or for convenience, riders on the Terre Haute Transit Utility’s bus system climb aboard for a cumulative 400,000 trips a year. Those riders are going to work, to see a doctor, to buy groceries, to college classes, to visit a friend, to the library, maybe just to the see the city.
In recent years, that service has grown by miles — from its 100,000 trips in 2004 to four times that now, as our Howard Greninger reported in a story a few days ago. The Terre Haute Transit system has upgraded the appearance of its fleet to match or exceed that of other similarly sized cities. It has added routes and stops to meet rider needs. Its addition of service to the Indiana State University campus continues to be a big hit.
Those services, of course, have not come without increasing costs — $2.49 million of expenses in 2013, undoubtedly more in 2014. An unfortunate part of that equation is that rider fees have also increased to $1.75 a trip, discounted to 85 cents many hours a day for seniors, disabled and Medicare recipients. Children 5 and under ride free. Multiple-ride discounts also help cut costs.
Those costs have risen, in large part, because for the last six years the state of Indiana’s contributions to local transit systems have been capped. With no increase in state money, the bus system has had to seek other revenue.
Now, Terre Haute and municipal transit systems around the state face a 3-percent cut in state funds, thanks to the $31 billion budget offered by Gov. Mike Pence. This proposed cut comes despite $469,800,000 more revenue than forecast being collected in the last five fiscal years (the most recent ending June 30, 2014) and a $2 billion surplus. Granted, state revenue for the first seven months of the 2014-15 fiscal year are down 1.1 percent and the surplus is forecast to drop to just below $1.9 billion in that fiscal year. Still, it hardly seems necessary to cut funds for transit by $1.3 million to exact the 3-percent cut.
Rep. Randy Truitt, R-West Lafayette, feels the same way. A bill he has introduced would go the other way: It would raise the transit allocation in the state budget to $60 million per year for both years in the biennium being considered. That would be a needed increase from the current $42.5 million per year. Truitt is the latest Republican to oppose his own party’s governor on matters of budget and tax cuts in the last three years. With an overwhelmed Democratic superminority, it’s fortunate that Republicans are keeping Pence at least somewhat in check with state funds.
But should the state subsidize local transit systems? Truitt’s answer: “Some people call this a subsidy. I see it as an investment.” He’s right. Thousands of people across Indiana — hundreds in Terre Haute — can’t afford access to dependable vehicles. Some are elderly or infirm. For them, a ride on the bus lets them access their lives outside the four walls. People who are productive, active and contributing to our communities need the assistance of regular, dependable and high quality public transportation. For those who may never use public transportation, it remains an investment in a better community.
The best result would be for Truitt’s funding proposal to make it into the Legislature’s passing lane and to avoid Pence’s misguided attempt to take air out of public transit’s tires.