Rural Transit riders might see no change, if parallel service is run to get around urban-to-urban trip ban
The actual solution to a transit problem outside Bloomington boundaries might not turn out to be the one that was anticipated by the city council in the first half of August.
That’s when Bloomington’s city council revised local law to allow Bloomington Transit (BT) to operate anywhere in Monroe County, not just inside city limits.
There were independent reasons for expanding BT’s service area.
But it was believed that the legal authority for BT to run service outside the city boundaries would solve a dilemma caused by a recent change in an INDOT (Indiana Department of Transportation) enforcement policy. The change to enforcement affects a long-time regulation on federal funds (Section 5311) for rural transit agencies like Area 10’s Rural Transit.
The basic idea was that BT would start filling in for about 8,000 trips a year that Rural Transit will be prohibited from making, beginning on Jan. 1, 2024.
In federal transit terms, the extra trips that BT was expected to start covering would start and end inside the “urban area” of Monroe County—but would not be entirely contained within the city. (For a trip with origin and destination both inside the city, Bloomington Transit already provides service.)
One example of such a trip would be from Ellettsville to Walmart on Bloomington’s west side. Another such trip is from Ellettsville to anywhere inside the city limits—like the former location of the IU Health hospital at 2nd and Rogers streets. Trips starting and ending inside Ellettsville are also examples.
It seemed like the only question that needed to be answered by the end of this year was: How much would Monroe County government and the town of Ellettsville pay Bloomington Transit for the service?
But now, it looks like Rural Transit might have found a way around the Section 5311 ban against urban-to-urban trips. And the cost for Rural Transit’s proposal is about 70 percent of BT’s proposal.
So a likely scenario is that Rural Transit will, at least for the next year, continue to provide the same urban-to-urban service that it has in the past.
Rural Transit’s idea is to use electric buses that were recently purchased by Monroe County for Rural Transit with $540,000 of the county government’s ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) allocation, not Section 5311 federal money. Operations funding would come from Ellettsville and Monroe County government
On Tuesday night, the Monroe County council appropriated the county’s $88,000 share of the cost, and on Wednesday morning the county commissioners added the $88,000 to the county’s APRA plan.
Under Rural Transit’s proposal, Ellettsville would contribute $132,000, which is 60 percent of the total cost. The 60:40 split for Ellettsville and Monroe County government is based on an analysis of historical trip origins and destinations. The $220,000 total cost reflects a price of $27.41 per trip.
Responding to a B Square question, Ellettsville town council president William Ellis wrote that the $132,000 requested from Ellettsville will appear on the Dec. 11 town council’s meeting agenda.
Ellis continued, “There is still some information we need to figure out how to fund it, and we should have that by the meeting. We will be doing something, though.” Ellis added, “We can’t let people that need this service go without it.”
On Monday night, county councilor Trent Deckard and county commissioner Julie Thomas pitched the idea to the Ellettsville town council.
BT’s proposal, which was formally approved as part of a resolution at its regular Tuesday night board meeting, was to charge $39 per trip. That works out to $312,000 for 8,000 trips.
BT’s proposal was to use its ADA paratransit service, branded as BT Access, to provide same day, on-demand service for trips for people with disabilities. For other riders, BT is proposing to use an Uber/Lyft voucher system, which BT already uses for its BT Late Nite on-demand service.
The price tag for BT’s proposal reflects the cost of providing the service. But on the county government’s side, there had been a hope that BT would subsidize the service to some extent, based on Section 5307 federal funds, which is roughly the Section 5311 funding equivalent for urban public transportation agencies like BT.
Under the FTA’s Section 5307 formula program, the roughly 30,000 people who live in Monroe County’s urban area, but outside Bloomington city limits, help generate federal dollars for Bloomington Transit because of where they live—inside an urban area. But under local law, up until August—when Bloomington’s city council gave BT the legal authority to operate outside city boundaries—those residents could not get the benefit of Bloomington Transit service.
Those not getting service from BT still make up about 28 percent of the population used by the FTA to allocate Section 5307 funds to BT. In 2022, BT’s share of the Section 5307 funds was $4.1 million.
On Tuesday night, BT general manager John Connell confirmed to The B Square that a fair characterization of BT’s proposal was that it just reflects the actual cost to BT, but does not include a “discount” out of consideration for the historical use of Section 5307 funds.
It’s a sore point for Rural Transit and county government officials. Included in the county council’s Tuesday night meeting information packet is a memo from Area 10 executive director Chris Myers, which operates Rural Transit. The memo states, “Note, [BT] is not proposing to apply any of their 5307 Program grant funds to offset any of the costs of providing this service.”
The memo continues: “Also note that [BT] has received for decades their 5307 grant allocation based on the full urbanized area population and only chooses to use all of those grant funds to subsidize transportation within the city of Bloomington limits.”
BT’s position on the appropriate cost for the service is influenced by the wording of the city council’s ordinance that gave BT the legal authority to operate outside city boundaries. The ordinance states that:
SECTION 3. Any expansion of services outside of the city limits shall be funded through sources of revenue other than city funds or tax revenues already paid by city residents to the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation, and any resulting interlocal agreements shall be equitable in relation to the level of support city residents already provide to the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation.
At a Nov. 3, 2023 working session of the BT board, four different “funding philosophies” were contemplated, including one where the price for the service was set as the actual cost of the service.
One of the other philosophies considers as a percentage the amount of revenue that the city of Bloomington now contributes annually to BT from the new economic development local income tax (ED LIT). The math on that is $3,806,100 out of $16,587,406. That’s about 23 percent of Bloomington’s ED LIT revenue.
Applying that same percentage to the ED LIT revenue for Monroe County government and the town of Ellettsville would mean a $2.9 million annual contribution to BT from those two governmental units, in order to provide the 8,000 trips.
A key part of the BT board’s resolution calls for the creation of a steering committee to ensure stability of funding for the service into the future:
SECTION 4. The Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation hereby endorses the concept of identifying and designating BPTC representatives and locally elected representatives of the City of Bloomington, Town of Ellettsville and Monroe County to serve on a steering committee to develop and advocate for a dedicated local funding source to support robust public transit services throughout Monroe County.
On Tuesday night, BT board members commented on Rural Transit’s proposal.
They noted that the Rural Transit’s price was a lot lower their own agency’s. BT board president James McLary said, “In all honesty, if they can do it for 27 [dollars a trip], and they can do it legally, I say all power to them.”
BT general manager echoed McLary’s sentiment, saying “For that matter, there may be contracting opportunities for us to work with them at $27 a trip.”
McClary’s hedge about Rural Transit’s ability to provide the service legally drew on a concern expressed by BT board member Kent McDaniel. Even if the buses were purchased with non-Section 5311 funds and the operational costs were covered with non-Section 5311 funds, Rural Transit would still need to maintain the buses in some facility that was not funded with Section 5311 money, McDaniel indicated.
Connell said that the board’s approval of its resolution is still important, even if Rural Transit winds up being the service provider for the coming year. In case anything falls through, the resolution puts BT in a “be ready” position, Connell said.
