Likely to be fueled by Monroe County ARPA: New west-side Bloomington bus, ‘shadow’ rural service
A new bus route to the west side of Bloomington—which will go outside city limits, to serve Ivy Tech, Simtra, and Cook Medical, among other employment centers—looks like it will get its $177,885 annual cost covered by Monroe County government.
That’s one of the bits of transportation news that came out of a joint meeting of Monroe County commissioners and councilors this past Wednesday (Oct. 9).
Another piece of transportation news from that joint meeting affects riders who have for years relied on Rural Transit to provide urban-to-urban trips inside More County—if one of the end points is outside Bloomington city limits.
At Wednesday’s meeting, it appears that county commissioners and councilors have reached a consensus that they will provide all of the $156,989 in funding required in 2025, for Rural Transit to continue to provide the rides.
In common parlance, the service now provided by Rural Transit with local money—instead of the federal funds that were previously used—is called by some a “shadow” service.
Earlier, county officials had hoped that the town of Ellettsville would pay $70,645 as its share of the door-to-door service. But that proposal foundered on a 2–3 vote of the town council in late September.
To pay for both transportation initiatives, Monroe County government is looking to tap ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) money. Like other public entities, Monroe County government is under an end-of-year deadline to get all of its ARPA funds allocated, or face a loss of those funds.
A potential future source of sustained funding for the two initiatives could be Monroe County government’s share of the countywide ED LIT (economic development local income tax).
At Wednesday’s joint work session, county councilor Geoff McKim noted that while it’s the county council that makes the appropriations of ED LIT funding, the county commissioners also have an important role. Commissioners would be legally required to include the use of the ED LIT for transportation in the county’s annual plan for spending the proceeds of that tax.
Appearing on the county council’s agenda for this Tuesday (Oct. 15) is an item that includes the appropriation of ARPA money. It has been a recurring item for several weeks, so there’s no guarantee the two transportation items will see action on Tuesday.
West-side route outside of city limits
At Bloomington Transit’s most recent board meeting, general manager John Connell was given a green light to work out the arrangements with Monroe County government for the west side fixed route loop that was discussed at Wednesday’s joint meeting.
On Wednesday, president of the board of commissioners Julie Thomas said that she was glad that Connell had knocked off about $145,000 for the cost of the service, compared to the initial amount.
The basis for the reduction in cost stems from the required ADA paratransit service that comes with fixed route service. That requirement is to provide ADA paratransit service to anyone living within three-quarters of a mile of a fixed route line. The initial cost proposal had incorporated an assumption of lots more ADA trips.
But implementing the proposed route would not generate a lot more ADA paratransit trips, which is already so close to the city limits that much of the three-quarter-mile buffer is already covered by BT.
The proposed new route is almost entirely contained within territory that would be annexed into Bloomington, if the pending litigation over annexation were to be resolved in favor of Bloomington.
It will be the first route to go outside of Bloomington’s current boundaries, a possibility only since Bloomington’s city council changed local law about a year ago to enable such service.
The new route, at the $177,885 funding level, would run once an hour.
The route would start at the downtown transit center, head north on Walnut Street, then west at 17th Street (which becomes Vernal Pike), turn south at Curry Pike, head west at Profile Parkway, grab Zenith Drive and then Daniels Way, before looping back east on 3rd Street, then south on South Park Square Drive, east again on Gifford Road, until hitting Curry Pike, then retracing the same path back towards the downtown transit center.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Thomas said that the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce was willing to work with Simtra, Cook, and Ivy Tech to get them to “chip in” some money to fund the route. But Thomas noted that the idea is not to reduce the $177,885 amount that Monroe County is contributing. Instead, the additional funding would allow the service to be more frequent than just once an hour.
Rural Transit urban-to-urban trips
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, the county electeds reached an easy consensus that Monroe County should pay for the whole cost of the Rural Transit trips that can no longer be paid for out of federal Section 5311 formula funds.
For 2025, that amount comes to $156,989. Earlier, county officials had hoped that the town of Ellettsville would pay $70,645 as its share, because many Ellettsville residents benefit from the service.
County council president Trent Deckard described the situation like this: “This would be the county jumping in where Ellettsville has not, and saying that we will guarantee that current service for another year through these funds.”
A funding crisis for some of Rural Transit trips emerged in late 2023, when INDOT, which serves as pass-through agency, decided to start enforcing a Section 5311 rule. The rule says that the money cannot be used to pay for trips, if the starting and end points are both in an urbanized area (UA) in the county.
The map for the UA is determined every 10 years by the US Census. An urban area is defined in terms of population numbers, density and land use.
Key to understanding the situation is recognizing that the county’s UA includes big parts of the county that are not inside Bloomington city limits—most notably most of the town of Ellettsville.
When the start and end points of a trip are both inside the city of Bloomington, the prohibition against Rural Transit providing a trip, by using its 5311 formula funds, does not have a negative impact on riders—because Bloomington Transit provides service between those two points.
But up until 2024, if either the origin or the destination was outside of Bloomington city limits, Rural Transit could and would provide the trip connecting those points, using 5311 funds.
But starting last year, Rural Transit could not use its 5311 funds to pay for trips, if both the origin and designation are inside the UA. An example of such a trip that Rural Transit can no longer make using 5311 money is from Ellettsville to Walmart on Bloomington’s west side.
Last year, a combination of Monroe County and Ellettsville money was used to pay for the urban-to-urban trips that Rural Transit made.
