Tag: John Connell

Bloomington bus update: BT general manager against SB 52, floodway hinders on-site expansion

Bloomington Transit’s plan to expand its fleet, in support of offering cross-town east-west express service, is hitting some speed bumps—one due to natural conditions and another due to potential state legislative action.

On Tuesday, at its regular monthly meeting, the five-member Bloomington Transit (BT) board got an update on the issues.

The natural conditions are related to the fact that a good part of the existing property, where BT’s bus storage facility and administrative offices are located, sits in a floodway or floodplain. The same goes for immediately adjoining land, which ordinarily would be a logical possibility for acquisition and expansion.

But constructing inside bus storage, which is best for the battery electric vehicles that BT eventually wants to use for its entire fleet, would be challenging in a floodway as defined by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).

Another hurdle is a piece of legislation pending in this year’s state legislative session. Senate Bill 52 would prohibit local government units like BT, at least until July 1, 2025, from adopting or enforcing a any policy, that seeks to establish a dedicated bus lane.

SB 52 has been passed by the state senate on a 35–14 vote, and is being heard by the roads and transportation committee of the state house.

Any proposed east-west express route across Bloomington would likely include some combination of dedicated bus lanes for at least part of the route. At Tuesday’s meeting, general manager John Connell reported to the board on his turn testifying against SB 52 at the committee hearing, which took place earlier that day.

Meanwhile, BT’s fixed route ridership continues to claw its way back towards pre-pandemic numbers. The 252,380 fixed-route rides provided in January 2024 amounted to 84.7 percent of the January 2019 ridership figures.

Continue reading “Bloomington bus update: BT general manager against SB 52, floodway hinders on-site expansion” →

Column: A true story about transit in Monroe County—it’s not about a change in the map

Stories about public transportation can be fun. But only if they’re true.

This past Wednesday afternoon, Bloomington Transit, the city’s public bus system, convened a “transit summit” at the Monroe Convention Center.

It was attended by around 60 people, which included elected and appointed officials, as well as staff from a few different governmental units.

Wednesday’s three-hour meeting was planned by representatives from Foursquare ITP, which is Bloomington’s hired consultant for its recently adopted strategic plan.

Objectively measured, the breakout groups generated a lot of useful ideas about unmet transportation needs, and ways that transit providers could meet them.

But the final hour of the meeting—which was designed for elected officials and decision makers—was marred by an untrue story, told by Foursquare.

Part of the story is true: Transportation services are now somewhat in jeopardy for those Monroe County residents who live outside Bloomington city limits but inside the “urbanized area” (UA) as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. There’s a funding crisis for those trips.

The part that was not true involves the cause of the funding crisis.

It’s important to hold Foursquare accountable for its mistake. It is vital for local decision makers to accurately understand the origin of the crisis in order to have a chance at achieving an equitable and sustainable solution. Continue reading “Column: A true story about transit in Monroe County—it’s not about a change in the map” →

Transit notebook: Bloomington heads towards more cashless fares, year-end housekeeping

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” →

Rural Transit riders might see no change, if parallel service is run to get around urban-to-urban trip ban

Bloomington Transit fixed route ridership numbers.
County councilor Trent Deckard and county commissioner Julie Thomas address the Ellettsville town council. (Nov. 27, 2023)
Ellettsville town council president William Ellis (Nov. 27, 2023)
Bloomington Transit general manager John Connell with BT board president James McLary in the background. (Nov. 28, 2023)
Monroe County council meeting (Nov. 28, 2023)
The blue shading indicates “urban area” as defined by the US Census and Federal Transit Administration. The current, pre-annexation city boundary for Bloomington is shown in black. https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1irTiPkrnMPTnxXQcejdpvF0EMyR1jvo&usp=sharing

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. Continue reading “Rural Transit riders might see no change, if parallel service is run to get around urban-to-urban trip ban” →

Transit notebook: Post-pandemic Bloomington bus ridership continues to rise

The monthly ridership numbers for Bloomington Transit were again a bright spot for the board of the public transportation agency at its meeting last Tuesday.

September this year was the first time monthly ridership on BT fixed route buses had exceeded 300,000 passengers since the COVID-19 pandemic hit three and a half years ago.

In her report to the board, planning and special projects manager Shelley Strimaitis highlighted the 300,000 rider milestone for ridership recovery. Continue reading “Transit notebook: Post-pandemic Bloomington bus ridership continues to rise” →

Bloomington Transit board OKs budget for presentation to city council, plans for limited replacement of Rural Transit service

From left: John Connell, Don Griffin, James McLary

Bloomington Transit’s 2024 budget, as adopted by the board at its meeting last Tuesday, is about $280,000 more than the draft presented a month ago by BT general manager John Connell.

At around $26.6 million, it’s still less than this year’s $35-million budget, which included significant amounts for acquisition of new buses.

The other notable topic of discussion at Tuesday’s board meeting was the city council’s action, taken the previous week, to give BT the legal authority to operate outside the city limits of Bloomington anywhere in Monroe County.

Still to be negotiated are interlocal agreements between BT and other entities, so that BT can provide service to non-city residents who previously were served by Rural Transit. Under the ordinance, the interlocal agreements have to be “equitable in relation to the level of support city residents already provide to the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation.”

Continue reading “Bloomington Transit board OKs budget for presentation to city council, plans for limited replacement of Rural Transit service” →

Countywide authority for Bloomington Transit OK’d by city council, without Rural Transit in the room

The blue shading indicates “urban area” as defined by the US Census and Federal Transit Administration. The current, pre-annexation city boundary for Bloomington is shown in black. https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1irTiPkrnMPTnxXQcejdpvF0EMyR1jvo&usp=sharing
Fixed route ridership for BT through June 2022.
Bloomington city council (Aug. 9, 2023)
From left: Doug Horn, James McLary, and John Connell.

At its regular Wednesday meeting, Bloomington’s city council changed local law to give Bloomington Transit authority to operate anywhere in Monroe County.

That city council decision meant a rejection of the approach advocated by the board of the Area 10 Agency on Aging, which operates Rural Transit, also a public transportation agency. Rural Transit provides service in Monroe County as well as three other counties—Putnam, Owen, and Lawrence.

Rural Transit wanted the city council to allow Bloomington  Transit to expand service outside of the city limits—but only to include all of Monroe County’s “urban area.” The “urban area” is defined by the US Census and used by the Federal Transportation Administration to allocate funding.

Allowing Bloomington Transit to operate anywhere inside Monroe County, sets up a scenario where any ride provided by Rural Transit could also be provided by Bloomington Transit.

But on Wednesday, BT general manager John Connell told the city council that BT is not interested in trying to supplant any of the rural-to-urban and urban-to-rural service that Rural Transit can still legally provide.

In a resolution dated July 28, 2023, the Area 10 board expressed support for the expansion of Bloomington Transit’s service outside the city limits of Bloomington, but only to include the additional “urban area.”

In an email dated July 29, 2023, Area 10 executive director Chris Myers sent a copy of the board’s resolution to all city councilmembers.

Responding to a question from The B Square after the council’s Wednesday meeting, Myers indicated that she did not receive a reply to her email message from any city councilmember. She did not attend Wednesday’s meeting. Myers indicated she had not been notified that the council would that night be taking up the ordinance changing BT’s service area.

Attending the meeting on behalf of Bloomington Transit were general manager John Connell as well as board members Doug Horn and James McClary. Continue reading “Countywide authority for Bloomington Transit OK’d by city council, without Rural Transit in the room” →

2024 local govt budget season kickoff: Draft plan for Bloomington Transit includes $12M for land purchase

BT’s Grimes Lane facility is outlined in red. The image is oriented with west at the top. It is taken from the Monroe County property lookup system.
Fixed route ridership for BT through June 2022.

This past Tuesday’s meeting of Bloomington Transit’s five-member board included a first look at the 2024 budget for the city’s public transportation agency.

The biggest chunk of the draft 2024 budget is about $12.5 million for acquisition of land to expand BT’s bus storage and maintenance facility.

At around $26.3 million, the draft 2024 budget is about $9 million less than the $35 million the board approved last year.

But that’s still $11 million more than the roughly $15-million budgets for the previous three years.

BT board chair James McLary called the 2024 plan a “very aggressive budget.”

The roughly $15-million budgets for the three years starting in 2020 already reflected a substantial increase, compared to the roughly $9- to $10-million budgets before that.

For each of the last four years, the biggest increases have come in the category of capital expenditures. Bloomington Transit is purchasing battery-electric buses as replacements for buses that have reached the end of their useful life—with a goal of running an all-electric fleet by 2050.

Last year, BT put extra money into electric bus acquisition, just to add to the size of its fleet—to prepare for running a new east-west express route, after a study is completed to analyze the route’s exact alignment and scheduling.

This year, the capital expense category is still the biggest fraction of the budget, but that’s mostly because there’s a $12.5-million item in that category labeled “land acquisition.”

The idea is to use about $2.5 million of local money to match a hoped-for federal grant that will cover the cost of the roughly $12.5-million project. Continue reading “2024 local govt budget season kickoff: Draft plan for Bloomington Transit includes $12M for land purchase” →

Bloomington Transit looks to city council for legal authority to serve whole county

Fixed route ridership for BT through June 2022.
Bloomington Transit board (July 18, 2023)
Rural Transit will not be able to offer trips with start and end points both inside the urban area (blue), beginning Jan. 1, 2024. A disallowed trip is shown in red. Allowed trips are shown in green.

Bloomington Transit (BT) wants to offer public transportation service anywhere in Monroe County.

In order to offer service outside the city boundaries, BT would need approval from Bloomington’s city council.

A request to Bloomington’s city council to enact such an ordinance won unanimous approval from BT’s five-member board at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday.

The extension of service outside of Bloomington’s boundary has for a while been a part of BT’s long-term vision.  And running buses outside Bloomington is an explicit part of BT’s strategic plan, which was adopted at the start of the year.

Last September, Bloomington’s city council already gave a nod to BT along these lines, when it passed a symbolic resolution indicating support for BT to extend service past the western city boundary to Daniels Way. Public transportation to that area would serve a major educational center in Ivy Tech, and a major employment center in Cook Medical.

But the precise timing of BT’s current interest in providing service anywhere in Monroe County can be analyzed as less about strategic planning and more about dealing with a crisis—involving a looming loss of service for some passengers who live outside the city limits.

Rural Transit is a public transit agency serving the area outside of Bloomington. It is a program of Area 10 Agency on Aging.

But starting Jan. 1, 2024, Rural Transit will no longer be allowed to give rides to passengers in certain parts of the unincorporated part of Monroe County. Continue reading “Bloomington Transit looks to city council for legal authority to serve whole county” →

Push for new Bloomington Transit countywide service could come from old rural transit rules

Recent public conversations about extending Bloomington Transit service outside the city boundaries have focused on the western edge of town.

In September 2022, Bloomington’s city council passed a resolution supporting the idea of extending public bus service out to Daniels Way, to serve Ivy Tech, Cook Medical, and other employers.

The council’s resolution came with a caveat requiring an interlocal agreement between Monroe County government and Bloomington about funding the additional service.

The council’s resolution was not merely symbolic. Under state law, it’s the city council that has to approve the extension of bus service outside the city boundaries.

But now, BT is thinking about a bigger kind of expansion than just the western end of the east-west corridor.

In his written report to the BT board last week, general manager John Connell put it like this: “BPTC’s preferred approach to service area expansion would include the entire county.”

BPTC is the acronym for BT’s legal name—Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation.

Already serving the part of Monroe County that is not covered by BT buses is Rural Transit, which is a program of Area 10 Agency on Aging. Continue reading “Push for new Bloomington Transit countywide service could come from old rural transit rules” →