James McLary – The B Square

Bloomington Transit (BT) is looking to switch to a fare collection system where almost all passengers who pay to board the bus will do it with an electronic transaction.

At its meeting last Tuesday, the BT board authorized general manager John Connell to negotiate an agreement with Cubic Transportation Systems for the purchase of electronic fare collection system software.

The amount of the agreement with Cubic, which is headquartered in San Diego, is not supposed to be more than $1.5 million.

BT currently has an agreement with Token Transit, to provide one way of paying for rides with a smartphone. And Token Transit was one of the companies that responded to BT’s request for proposals, along with Masabi. But Cubic wound up as the preferred vendor. Continue reading “Transit notebook: Bloomington heads towards more cashless fares, year-end housekeeping” →

R Output Monthly BT ridership for COVID reportNovember 2021 OUTPUT

James McLary at the July 2021 Bloomington Transit board meeting.

Nancy Obermeyer at the July 2021 Bloomington Transit board meeting.

Is it possible that someday everyone waiting at a public bus stop in Bloomington could climb aboard without having to pay a fare?

Could Bloomington’s public buses ever follow routes that go outside the city limits, if they serve the interests of Bloomington residents?

Will Indiana University and Bloomington Transit (BT) ever extend their cooperative arrangements to a point where there’s just one public bus system in town?

Those are some of the questions that BT’s new board president James McLary would like to address in a strategic plan that the public transit corporation is developing. McLary spoke about BT’s strategic plan in a late December interview with The B Square.

The strategic plan will have to incorporate the impact of the pandemic on ridership. In November 2021, BT ridership on fixed routes was about half what it was in pre-pandemic times.

Appearing on the Bloomington Transit board’s Jan. 18 meeting agenda is an item under old business labeled “Development of a Strategic Plan for Bloomington Transit.” That’s just a discussion item.

McLary’s election as the board’s president for 2022 came at the board’s Dec. 21 meeting. The 3–2 tally on the vote reflected the contentious character of the choice.

It’s an indicator that the board might not necessarily be in perfect alignment on elements of the strategic plan that it will be developing this year. Continue reading “Bloomington Transit board to start 2022 with work on strategic plan after contentious officer elections to end year” →