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true true

Officials: Bloomington Transit Changes Would Add Roughly 1,400 Hours Of Service

By Mitch Legan

Posted February 19, 2020

The Bloomington Downtown Transit Center (bus station). September 2019.

(Mitch Legan, WFIU/WTIU News)

Bloomington Public Transit Corporation’s Board of Directors plans to have proposed bus route changes ready by its next meeting in March.

The board further discussed proposed bus route changes at its meeting Tuesday evening, after introducing the proposals last month.

Transit board and staff members spent the last four weeks internally reviewing the original proposals and came back with adjustments Tuesday.

Late evening bus service is still curtailed under the updated proposals, but the proposed “Microtransit” system that would make up for the reduced service would be expanded from its original proposed area.

“It would serve a quarter-mile corridor within the fixed routes that are ending at 9:30 (p.m.) within the city boundaries,” says Bloomington Transit General Manager Lew May.

Service would continue until 12:30 a.m. Riders would be able to request a bus through a smartphone app, similar to Uber and Lyft.

“We do have a grant application pending – an innovation grant pending – with the Federal Transit Administration, the U.S. DOT [Department of Transportation],” May says. “We understand the announcement will be made in March so we still don’t know where we stand on that.”

If Bloomington Transit does not receive the $850,000 Microtransit grant, May says three other funding mechanisms are possible. Transit could apply for another grant, use Transit reserves or possibly use funds from Mayor John Hamilton’s proposed sustainability tax hike, if enacted.

There has been ongoing talk of extending Bloomington Transit’s Route 3 to Ivy Tech Community College, but May says that decision isn’t Transit’s to make.

“Staff remains neutral on the issue of whether this route should go to Ivy Tech or Cook,” he says. “It is basically a political decision that has to be made."

Board member Marilyn Hartman says she thinks difficulty agreeing on funding for the extension will prevent it from being realized.

“Not gonna happen,” she says.

May also says staff recommended not extending Route 1 north of the bypass to some affordable housing on Walnut Street because they determined making the turn back onto Walnut was too dangerous.

“We took a bus up there, we talked with our union and drivers,” May says. “And we don’t feel that is a good recommendation. We think it will be too difficult to pull a bus out across two lanes of traffic making a left onto North Walnut with the high speed of traffic – traffic’s about 40 miles an hour, sometimes moving faster – we think it’ll be difficult to do that.” 

Instead, the Microtransit service would be extended to that area. But that would only run from 9:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.

In total, the proposed changes would add roughly 1,400 additional hours of service.

“I believe we can swing that as part of our regular budget,” May says.

Officials will spend the next month reviewing the proposals and plan to have final recommendations ready for their next meeting Tuesday, March 17.

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